Saturday, July 12, 2025
Hello from the least experienced person on the crew! At sea for almost 2.5 days now. This is our second day of a full watch rotation and we’re all starting to get the feel of the routine. It’s afternoon now and finally the seas are a bit calmer. We certainly hit the ocean running! We had squalls, intermittent rain, and gusts of 35 kts. The Yankee jib came out and then went back in several times. Just put it out again and it looks like we may be able to leave it there for a bit longer.
We’ve seen tons of jumping fish today and we have a new part-time member of the crew—a brown booby who’s been following us since the wee hours of the morning, occasionally going for a ride on our pulpit.
Things that have surprised me as a novice sailor:
- A crew of 11 and not one annoying person in the bunch! Everyone is pleasant, helpful, and kind.
- I don’t mind the stickiness of the salt water and air at all.
- They’re not kidding when they say just living on a sailboat offshore takes a lot of energy.
- Lying down in your bunk and shutting your eyes really does help seasickness.
- The food is fantastic!
- After only knowing each other for a few days, we already have inside jokes.
- Helming is really fun!
- I can indeed learn to nap during the day!
- Stephanie L. | FALKEN Crew
FALKENCrew
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Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.