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Priest and traveler Feodor Konyukhov is to start a new large-scale voyage.
"I crossed the Atlantic Ocean in an rowing boat ten years ago. From that time my conscience has been telling me that I ought to cross the Pacific Ocean. But the Atlantic Ocean is three thousand miles, while the Pacific Ocean is eight thousand. We need another boat, bigger and more powerful. I told my friends from the Chelyabinsk Region about my dream and they supported me," Father Feodor was quoted as saying by the Chelyabinsk edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily.
He intends to leave from Chile and reach Australia in 160-180 days.
"No one has ever done it; a thousand islands will be on my way, and there will be the temptation to stop and land. There's no time to think in the sea – you always need to row. That's why I wrote such a short diary when I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean. And beside food and a water distiller I will take the Gospels and fishing rods on my new trip. It's pleasant and useful to do some fishing," said the priest.
Not long ago he climbed Mount Everest from the north, from the Tibetan side. "There are no thoughts on the mountain top, and indeed, where they can come from if your blood gets dense from oxygen starvation, and you can’t feel your hands and legs, to say nothing about your head. I always prayed to St Nicholas: I said: Nicholas, pull me up! And he pulled me to the top. I lost eight kilos on the trip, and my entire beard was pulled out from the oxygen mask. But it's nothing if compared to what could happen. Everest takes mountain climbers every year. This year it was eleven people," said Father Feodor.
According to him, it is not only physically hard to climb Mount Everest.
"I'm thin and I don't have muscles. No one saw me working out with weights. But they saw me praying all night long. And I do what I do only with God's help. I don't have the physical, moral and intellectual abilities to cross the ocean alone or to reach the pole. All this is possible only with God. In Tibet I buried a small icon of St Nicholas in the snow. We recently sent a similar icon to the International Space Station. The icon makes 16 turns around the Earth each day and protects us," said the traveller.