12 Sep 2014

Weather Dictates

An early autumn storm has disrupted our plans over the last few days, but we have still managed a good number of landings. A deep low pressure system (cyclone) became stationary to the south-east of us and this brought strong to gale-force winds from the north to north-west sector. It is diminishing now after five days and moving away to the east, with the winds forecast to ease later today. While it has been frustrating to miss some landings, this is a timely reminder that we are not in charge of the natural world and we must adapt to its dictates.  We are now running towards the Commander Islands and have following seas making sailing quite comfortable. We had to abort the last two landings on Karaginskiy and Verhoturova Islands but managed two successful landings in the Koryaksky Reserve. We are now looking forward to better weather for our two scheduled days at the Commander Islands.