TRACKER MAP WILL BE UPDATED FEB. 15, 2025
February 14, 2025
Antigua Yacht Club Marina | Pre-departure blog
The docks are filled with giants, and we are just passing through. In the beautiful marina of Antigua Yacht Club, you can find some of the biggest super-yachts you have seen. When walking along the dock looking left to right, you are surrounded by huge, shiny hulls all around you. But when you get a bit further out on the dock, the wall is interrupted, and if your eyes are staring up at the top decks of the super yachts, you might miss us. FALKEN is now located between two giants, and today we are planning to pass through to leave the harbor and head out to a mooring buoy for some man-overboard (MOB) training and a mellow evening and night to prepare for our passage the day after.
However, this plan got a bit of a twist. As we were heading out to the newly placed mooring buoy shown by the marina owner, we encountered a boat on anchor too close to the place we were supposed to tie up to. After a couple of tries in the blowing and rainy squalls, we were directed to change our plans and head back to the dock of Antigua Yacht Club to tie ourselves up again. We are now placed on the outer end of the long marina.
In the ten days since we arrived in Antigua from Las Palmas, we have done a successful handover to Mary and Manot from Emily & Mia. We’ve prepared the boat for the upcoming passage, done some maintenance work, and a bit of provisioning. The crew arrived to the boat yesterday, and after an introduction to the boat and our safety culture, FALKEN is now a home for the eleven people and ready for departure.
The conditions look promising for the passage. It seems now we will have a fast and fun downwind sail from Antigua to Colombia with wind strengths around 20 to 25 knots in the first couple of days, so HOLD FAST!
- The Apprentice, Vilgot
59ºNorthApprentice
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Final Blog
Falken and her crew arrived safely into port last night around 8pm boat time, 10pm Prince Rupert time. Some spicy weather was anticipated, but luckily the 35kt gusts and 2.5 meter waves were no match for this expert crew. We had an exceptionally smooth docking, despite it being Alex's first time parking this year (!). We all agreed that this was a very special group of people—I for one am so impressed with how everyone stayed so positive, helpful, and appreciative of humor despite an arguably challenging passage. We'll all return home significantly saltier than we were when we left, a mark of a passage properly sailed.
Lessons and a Gift
The biggest lesson is the helm. The lesson here is that even if you don't think you can do it over and over again with no sleep, cold and damp, it has to be done and so it can be done. Flying fish are cool, dolphins are really really cool, but the coolest of them all are the whales. And most of all Alex: "Find your center Carla. Always know where your center is so you can come back to it". He means the helm but it applies to life as well.
Making the most of it
This passage has thrown pretty much every atmospheric condition imaginable at us. It reminds us not only of how much we’ve learned, but of how far we’ve literally come since that acceleration zone off the northwest corner of Oahu. The resilience this group has shown has been nothing short of incredible, and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of it. Maybe that’s why it’s the hardest passages we remember the most. Not because they were easy, but because they reminded us what we’re capable of.
