Keeping a diary

Thank you for this translation of yesterday's Latinitsa, Konstantin Zherebtsov:

"Today the first time have stopped for bathing, at the same time we have examined a boat."
(just for fun - instead of necessarily. I hope )))


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A proper audit of the boat was probably due by this time.  The team did a thorough examination of the tri on their arrival and before leaving each stop while sailing around South Africa/Namibia.  Having it out of the water made it easier I guess!  :)   Knowing them they would have had fun either way - I'm sure their diaries will show this.

I'm hoping that they use every idle moment for writing about their experiences.  It will make an interesting and useful documentary for anyone trying to take on a similar voyage.  The captain and Evgeny Kovalevski are writing up their diaries and Tashkin is making voice recordings.  Yuri is sending us bits of his diary every day, I guess, in the form of coordinates!   But he probably also has a separate record of his own.

On a long trip like this, one day tends to flow into the next and sometimes it feels as if there is nothing to write about.  Yet all sorts of things are happening:  the dynamics within the group in this extraordinary situation alone would be sufficient material for a movie!

Talking about diaries:  A near disaster took place in  Hout Bay one day.  

Anatoly was walking around with a grim look on his face and searching through every nook and cranny in the club-house.  His diary had disappeared.  He couldn't find it anywhere.  We searched and searched - nothing.  We asked the bar staff and described the diary to them:  an A4 book with a black leather cover - but nobody had seen such a thing and nothing had been handed in.  The language differences made it even more difficult to get across what the missing object looked like and the more agitated Anatoly became, the more the look of confusion increased on the faces of the staff. 

After searching for many hours and coming up with nothing, the captain seemed to accept that the book was gone.  The loss of this document was a horrible blow and his face said it all.

This was not acceptable - the thing had to be SOMEWHERE!!  Anatoly clearly remembered sitting in the pub with it the previous afternoon.

By the merest chance and in desperation I discussed the missing diary with a junior member of the club staff - a young man who had started working as a cleaner for the Hout Bay Yacht Club just a few days before.  He listened attentive, looked around the bar area but then shook his head - no such book had been handed in.  Then a light went on in his eyes - and he started describing the book to me!!!   "Yes, yes, yes, that's it!"  I said.  "Have you seen it?  Where?!?!"

The young man led the way downstairs and we all trooped behind, some of us not realizing what was going on but having no choice because they were being dragged along by the T-shirt (this was now the distraught Anatoly whose English extends to one line from the famous Beatles song "Michelle" - the line that goes:  "I want you, I want you I waaaaaaant you ...."   that he used to sing in full voice to everyone's delight.

So there we were like a string of ants - the young cleaner and potential hero in front with me breathing down his neck, other members of the team and HBYC staff - making our way down the stairs, across the yard past the trimaran and to a corner of the premises where several black refuse-bags had been stacked that morning.  "I think it's in there"  the cleaner said.  "Which one?"  we asked, looking at him in dismay.  The idea of searching through all those bags that contained who-knows what was not a pleasant prospect.  He didn't know - but it wasn't relevant.  Anatoly had already opened the first bag to start searching.

Of course, it was in the last bag that we opened - from beneath bundles of grass and other garden refuse we pulled Anatoly's leather-clad diary - the captain's record of the expedition.  The young man, beaming with joy to see Anatoly hugging the book to his chest, explained how he had found it lying in the garden, some distance from the trimaran.  Then the picture became clearer:  The captain now remembered sitting in the garden near the trimaran with his diary the previous day.  It had been calm and sunny and he must have put it down on the grass next to him and forgot about it.  There had been a fierce wind that night, however, that must have picked up the diary and dropped it, pages akimbo, to where the cleaner had found it that morning and placed it in the trash; the rubbish truck could have arrived at any moment to take those bin-bags away.

There was a zing of magic in the air when the book emerged from the depths of that rubbish bag - we had participated  in something extraordinary.  Why it should feel like that I don't really understand but the incident had stuck in my mind as important and meaningful.  A series of coincidences outside of anyone's control and yet it had a happy ending.  For a start, I'm sure in future Captain Anatoly will take greater care in keeping his diary   :)