A Very Merry Mary Birthday
2256 UTC | 10’22.42’ S, 149’31.98’ W
Sailing
Ahoy to the friends and family back home! Today is a very auspicious day that I’m trying to make the biggest deal possible much to her dismay. It’s skipper Mary’s birthday! She says this is the third time in the last four years that she’s celebrated her birthday in this particular corner of the world. She must really like the Pacific. And sailing, I reckon. We had some cosmic activity last night on the graveyard shift to really put some sprinkles on her big day. We were sailing along and I was facing aft chit-chatting away, and Ted at the helm starts exclaiming about something rapidly racing across the sky. One by one the whole watch team starts ooo and aahhhh-ing and joining in on the expressions of shock and disbelief. From Ted:
”It was just after sunset, and the stars were just starting to come out. I was at the helm, and was looking North to find a good star to Navigate by. Found one, bright orange, and started watching it until I realized it was moving. Fast. And getting brighter. It had a contrail, but was moving far too fast for an airplane. It was space debris reentering the atmosphere! Watched as it got brighter, broke in two off the starboard beam, and continued fragmenting until it winked out two minutes later to the Southeast.”
This was actually so otherworldly to witness out in the middle of the Pacific! Admittedly, I had the impulse to go wake up Mary for the irrational fear we may actually experience a rogue wave from the impact of whatever that was. It really put into perspective how far out her we are and how small us humans with these grandiose sailing plans are compared to the universe we are situated in. The fact that I’m here writing this to you now reassures me that we’re out of harms way from any meteoric effects on the ocean’s surface. But what a spectacle to witness!
If you can believe it, moments after this took place, we were having a discussion about Starlink and AI and ”the world we live in” when we saw ANOTHER celestial (not so much) phenomenon streaking across the sky- the Starlink satellite train! I had never seen it before and it is truly as strange and somewhat eerie to witness as everyone said it would be.
I am very happy to report that the crew is starting to come out on the other side of the initial adjustment period to being offshore. We’re seeing more and more smiling faces during off-watches and people are passing the time knitting, getting to know each other, and noodling on some fun riddles. I got the crew pretty good during our customs day asking them to come up with what they thought a GNAV is on a sailboat… its a real thing! Any ideas? They wanted to strangle me when they figured it out hehe. Then we pondered the age old ”where’s your paddle” riddle. Please send in any other good ones you’ve got so we can keep our minds sharp out here!
Rest assured that we are out here making the most of every day and taking in the wonderful expanse of ocean all around us. Bruce shared a really lovely reflection for his glow last night that we are all so privileged to be out here ”really doing this” when there are thousands of people who would probably give anything to undertake a passage like this. It was a lovely reflection and definitely made me feel so grateful to be out here with everyone, already melding so well as a crew. If we keep up this pace, we may be in Hawaii a bit sooner then anticipated! But we do expect a bit of a lull in the ITCZ coming up so stay tuned!
Phoebe Rogers
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
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.