A Cruising Guide Map to Isla del Cocos
0147 UTC | 05 33.209’N 087 02.508’W
Chatham Bay, Isla del Coco
Good evening,
The blog today is given to you through an amazing cruising guide map. Crewmember Amy Kardel has created something that actually would have been incredibly helpful to me in the planning of this Cocos trip!
We spent last night in Wafer Bay with plans to explore the ranger station in the morning, after being assured by the rangers it was calmer there (debatable). We saw a beautiful sunset with a cascading waterfall as company, happily chomping on tuna poke and excited for a new bay to explore.
We were quite literally rudely awakened from this dream at 0600 this morning, when the big dive boat stood off our stern, honking away. Apparently the rangers had told them, as they entered the protected area, that they could have the buoy we were on. After some chatter with the rangers, it was established we had to clear out and, actually, we couldn’t come ashore to the station as it was changeover day. Whilst this may not have been the ideal wake-up, it did mean we had a lovely sunrise pootle around the surrounding area before heading back to Chatham Bay. Unsurprisingly, spending another day exploring this idyllic bay has not been a hardship. Two more waterfalls have been found, more birds and creatures spotted, and a different snorkelling site explored. Most impressively, it has allowed Amy to improve on her wonderful cruising guide.
We set ‘sail’ (unfortunately it looks a very engine-happy return trip) at sunrise, so our final night has been spent eating good food, ice cream (!!), and admiring the night sky above us.
// Mary
View more passage logs
Ladies who reef
The trade winds have been kind, rolling the boat toward Hawaii in a steady, hypnotic rhythm—until last night, when a squall hit without warning and the wind jumped to 28 knots, slamming everything sideways. With rain driving down and the boat lurching underfoot, the crew had minutes to wrestle two reefs into the mainsail and get things back under control. What followed was a masterclass in wet, unglamorous, deeply satisfying teamwork—with less than 250 miles left to go.
Yankee Doodle Died at Sea, Riding on a FALKEN
A thin, foot-long tear in the yankee sail—50,000 miles of ocean behind it—and suddenly the final stretch to Hawaii just got a lot more interesting. The crew of FALKEN had been running a tight ship through the trades, reefing in squalls like clockwork, when the last dance finally caught up with them. How a skipper handles the moment everything goes sideways says everything about the voyage itself.
A Gen Z Perspective
At 31, the crew thought they were reasonably fluent in the English language—then they met Kip. Today, the crew's self-appointed Gen Z correspondent takes over the log from somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, delivering dispatches on Milky Way night sails, focaccia-induced visions, and the singular mission of getting eleven people's "badonkadonks" to Hawaii. Consider this your glossary.