On the afternoon of May 23, the trimaran Russian Ocean Way of the round-the-world expedition of the Tomsk Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society left the hospitable Brazilian coast astern. The ship left the Port of Rio Grande and headed for Uruguay. The trip along the coast of Brazil lasted four months.
“A huge beautiful country, open friendly people, good living conditions. We are going to Uruguay and soon we will cross the maritime border of Brazil and Uruguay,” the head of the expedition Evgeny Kovalevsky noted in his travel diary.
In this crossing, two Brazilians joined the international crew of the trimaran. The Russians Evgeny Kovalevsky and Stanislav Berezkin were joined by Jose Carlos Filho and Lennon Cesar. “Friendship of peoples is a priority mission of our expedition along with educational and scientific programs,” reminded Kovalevsky.
According to him, almost all residents of the city of Rio Grande with a population of about 200,000 people are now familiar with the story of the Russian round-the-world expedition on an inflatable sailing trimaran. And these are the fruits of “people’s diplomacy”, of which the international format of the crew is also a part. Passers-by stopped the Russians when they saw them on the streets, asked a lot of questions about the voyage, Russia and Siberia, visited the trimaran. A prime example of such communication was a meeting with students of the Center for Marine Sciences of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
During the final stop in Brazil, the crew of the circumnavigation took part in the next, fifth, “Lesson from the Ocean“, organized for schoolchildren by the Tomsk Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society. Evgeny Kovalevsky and Stanislav Berezkin spoke about the contribution of Russian navigators to the discovery of the world and conducted a virtual tour following the footsteps of Bellingshausen, Kruzenshtern and Golovnin, prepared during a visit to Rio de Janeiro.
Before the start of the first “Uruguayan” stage of the expedition, they’d had to wait for good weather – now storms and cyclones are quite frequent in the region.
“The wind was up to 35 knots tonight. Next night, 50 knots. We secured the trimaran on both sides with ropes. Nearby, two yachts are jumping in the wind and on the waves,” Evgeny Kovalevsky shared his feelings with the editor of the RGS website on May 17.
The weather allowed them to go to sea on May 23, “opening the window” for sailing for a couple of days.
“We’ll be sailing for two days to La Paloma in Uruguay. We have to make it before the storm, which is in two days. We are moving to the southwest. Ahead is Punta del Diablo, Devil’s Cape. The name is alarming, and the map shows the remains of sunken ships along the shore at the bottom. Apparently, for a reason. We still have signal, but after some time it will disappear,” Evgeny Kovalevsky noted late in the evening on May 23.
The crew of the Russian Ocean Way expresses its heartfelt gratitude to the Rio Grande Museum of Oceanography and personally to the director of the Lauro Barcelos Museum for their invaluable help in Rio Grande.
We will wait for news from the brave circumnavigators, and wish them a fair wind!
Alexander Zhirnov
