The sailboat of the circumnavigation expedition of the Tomsk Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society left the Maldives on the evening of April 3 and headed for the Socotra archipelago. In the near future, the brave crew will have to cross one of the most dangerous sections of the route.
“Socotra Island is 1,260 miles away. Then we go to the Gulf of Aden, then 650 miles to Djibouti. We expect to get there in three weeks. Then we will go through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Red Sea, followed by the Mediterranean Sea. The path is difficult and dangerous. Pirates of Somalia and Yemen, attacks by Yemeni Houthis on US and British ships. And the season is difficult: headwinds, changeable weather,” the head of the circumnavigation expedition Evgeny Kovalevsky shared his plans.
Evgeny Kovalevsky, Stanislav Berezkin and Filip Alekseev spent more than three weeks in the Maldives. The unplanned delay was caused by a generator failure and the poor condition of all the electrics on the ship.
Along with the repair, the crew continued meetings in the Maldives within the framework of the "People's Diplomacy" project. Evgeny Kovalevsky and Stanislav Berezkin also took part in the seventh "Lesson from the Ocean".
On July 1, 2021, Siberian travelers Evgeny Kovalevsky and Stanislav Berezkin set off along the route of the first Russian round-the-world expeditions of the 19th century: Ivan Kruzenshtern’s (1803-1806), Yuri Lisyansky’s (1803-1806), Otto Kotzebue’s (1815-1818, 1823-1826), Vasily Golovnin’s (1817-1819), Fedor Litke’s (1826-1829), Faddey Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev’s (1819-1921). The international project of the Tomsk Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society "Following the paths of Russian explorers" is dedicated to the 250th birthday anniversary of Krusenstern and the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica by Russian sailors. These events for a long time determined Russia's leadership in the development of the oceans and the discovery of new lands. You can learn more about the project and provide all possible assistance in its implementation on the website of the expedition.