Two nights in the ocean, more than 100 km covered

So far Fedor is coping reasonably well with the task of moving away from the coast of New Zealand. The conditions are difficult: changeable winds, sometimes head on and large ocean swell. Boat rises up to 5 meters on wave-crests and then lowers into the troughs. It is hard to row in such conditions.
Regular communication has been established with the AKROS boat: Fedor calls the expedition headquarters in New Zealand twice a day: at 8 am and 8 pm.

During the first two days, he saw penguins and dolphins, but no whales have yet.

The first 24 hours went completely without sleep. The start took place late in the evening. Usually, we plan our departures for the mornings so that Fedor can move away from the coast during daylight hours, but in the afternoon of 6 December, 30-35 knots winds blew in the Otago Harbour and we could not safely move away from the pier of Port Chalmers Yacht Club. Only after 6 pm, the wind began to moderate. Fedor had to use this opportunity to embark on his journey, as according to the weather forecast the wind would once again turn headwind on Friday, therefore Fedor made the decision to go into the ocean at night so that he could move away from the coast before dawn.

If you look at the track of the first night, you can see that the boat was dragging along the coast, and only at the daybreak, Fedor was able to start rowing eastwards. The task for the coming few days is to get further to the east, in order to get into a fair current and westerly winds, which should add a few knots to the speed of the boat. So far, all the progress was achieved by handwork on the oars.

We, at the expedition headquarters, have switched the frequency of the positioning signal from the boat from 30 minutes to one hour. In the open ocean, we will set up an Iridium 360 buoy for 1 signal every 4 hours. Map of Fedor’s route can be found here.

Presently, it is Saturday morning in New Zealand. Fedor said during a telephone conversation this morning that it was drizzling, he was having a cup of coffee with a piece of cake, which was baked to him by the locals, and was looking at the ocean. He will eat ordinary food for the first couple of days of his journey and then switch to Radix expeditionary meals.

Fedor also reported that he passed one degree to the east, and is gradually approaching the International Date Line, which runs along the 180° meridian.