22
Lieutenant Butakov
The Constantine had been confidently plying the blue waters of the Aral Sea for many days now. The sea was choppy, and the schooner was mercilessly tossed from wave to wave even in a light wind. To make her a little more stable, Butakov gave the order to have her ballasted with rocks which made her sink by four feet at the stern and three and a half feet at the bow.
Whenever she came to anchor off some island or in a bay, Butakov went ashore for astronomical observations, and Maksheiev for topographical surveys. After each such trip the pieces of white Whatman paper in the navigator’s cabin were covered with new grids, in between which were the wavy outlines of land and the dark or brighter blue of the sea. But Butakov did more than draw outlines of coasts and isla
