Arrival
Our last day all together on FALKEN. Time to arrive in the big city of Bergen. We slipped the lines and motored up the fjord while eating a leisurely breakfast. The crew took turns packing their bags and cleaning their bunks, ready for departure. It’s just a short trip to Bergen, but it’s through beautiful islands dotted with wooden homes and boat houses. We were all captivated by the beauty of Norway.
We arrived in the big city and found our mooring, which had been booked, was being used by another smaller boat. We just about managed to secure FALKEN with the bow sticking out. FALKEN really is very big. We forget how big she is when we are sailing. It’s only when we moor her that we are reminded. Her rig towers above most vessels. The vessel in question moved and we warped FALKEN back into her place. We were right in the heart of the old city of Bergen, near the beautiful old dock houses.
Now came the sad moment to say farewell to our newfound friends. We all promised to keep in contact and go sailing again together one day.
Fair winds, shipmates!
- Jojo Pickering, Skipper S/Y FALKEN
JoJoPickering
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”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2
After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.
Kauehi conundrum
Kauehi atoll was always on the itinerary—until the forecast made it a gamble not worth taking. Squalls, bommies, a tidal pass, and no clean escape route: sometimes the hardest call in sailing is the one that keeps you out of a place, not in it. The Tuamotus will have to wait.
Hove-to!
Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.