PANAJI: At 5.22pm Thursday, as Lt Cdrs Dilna Ok and Roopa Alagirisamy stepped on Indian soil after a 239-day historic voyage, they turned the primary Indian duo to sail throughout the planet.“Sure. We made it.” These 4 phrases from Dilna summed up the poignant and emotional 25,400-nautical-mile journey that started Oct 2 from the banks of the Mandovi.“We noticed the ocean and waves rising in anger some days. The waves had been as excessive as 20 toes tall, wanting like a wall. However we additionally had days when the ocean was as calm as a mirror, and it felt heavenly, and time felt meaningless,” mentioned Roopa, narrating their audacious endeavour to fly the Tricolour and naval ensign “in each sea and land the world over”.The circumnavigation took them by way of 4 oceans, crossing the equator twice and rounding the three nice capes – a route acknowledged because the gold normal in ocean crusing. The mission was a part of the Navy’s broader initiative to showcase girls’s function in maritime operations. It additionally aimed to encourage a brand new era of ladies to embrace journey and take to the seas – a website lengthy dominated by males.“I really feel I lived all my seven lives in these eight months. This isn’t going to be my final journey, I’m sorry,” mentioned Roopa with fun, as she addressed her household.The voyage examined not simply psychological endurance however seamanship too. The naval officers navigated a few of the world’s most treacherous waters, together with the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean. They battled towering waves, gale-force winds and lengthy spells of isolation with solely one another for firm and their 56-foot yacht as their shelter.Throughout the circumnavigation, the duo suffered an entire navigation blackout in the midst of the night time within the Pacific Ocean. “We misplaced GPS, boat heading, wind instrument, auto-pilot… all the things. It took us three hours, nevertheless it felt like an eternity to get again the programs. This truly gave us a false sense of safety in trendy gear,” Roopa mentioned.The duo coated 25,400 nautical miles over a interval of eight months with port calls at Fremantle (Australia), Lyttleton (New Zealand), Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) and Cape City (South Africa).Commander Abhilash Tomy (retd), the primary Indian to sail across the Earth continuous, offered mentorship to the duo. His survival and upkeep expertise helped the duo grasp the essential ability of dual-handed crusing. Captain Vipul Mehershi, Captain Atul Sinha, and Commander Nikhil Hegde additionally performed a key function in making ready the officers and the vessel for the expedition.The 2 naval officers’ triumphant return at Mormugao Port was witnessed by defence minister Rajnath Singh and chief of naval employees Admiral Dinesh Ok Tripathi.