Azores → Portugal
Day 1, Oct 19 // Horta and Departure for Lagos
Aaaaaaahoy there everybody! I am writing to you from Horta, in the middle of the Atlantic. FALKEN has spent a whopping four days here, during which we said good-bye to a freshly-salted and fairly-weathered leg 13 crew and welcomed aboard a brand new crew of sailors.
The turn-over was quick and was complicated by a sweeping cold front that blew 45 knots directly into Horta Harbor. The jetty that FALKEN had been assigned to was nearly underwater. Skipper Erik and I spent about 10 minutes in the gale kicking fenders in between the boat and the pier until we decided that anchoring out would be the safest option. We anchored safely just before nightfall. The wind kept up, bringing with it larger swell and a surface chop. We let loose all our chain and hunkered down for a grueling 2 hours-on, 2 hours-off anchor watch throughout the night. Never a dull moment!
Come day, the water was as still as glass. We sailed back to the dock and launched straight into a full day of boat prep. Laundry, maintenance, inventory, deep-clean, debriefs, briefs… we were busy. But not too busy to notice how beautiful it is here.
Horta is truly breathtaking. The small harbor is surrounded by rolling green meadows situated on the sides of these huge cliffs. The tiny town is picturesque. The buildings are old and colorful, the roofs are mostly red. The marina stands off the battlements of an old fort, and there are several canons pointing right at FALKEN. The coffee and beer is 1 euro. We have been frequenting Peter’s Sport Cafe, a fabled establishment touted as the sailors' bar of the Azores. This is the first place where sailors flock after a long transatlantic passage. Lots of history, fun spot!
On Sunday we were happy to welcome aboard Jonah, Michelle, and Willie, our 59 North Apprentices! These folks have joined us to both learn from and contribute towards 59 North. We didn’t have any apprentices with us on our last leg, so it will be great to have three on this one!
Monday; the day of crew arrival. Michelle and I hustled over to the largest supermarket in the area, the ‘Continente’. As far as island supermarkets go, this one was top-tier! It was huge, and I found everything we needed for a nutritious and delicious passage east. We filled up three carts and spent around 800 euro.
Back on the boat, we stowed the food and moved FALKEN to a fantastic floating slip in the Marina. The charcuterie board was ready by the time guests arrived.
So: quick turn-around? Yes. Tough job? Kind of! It was definitely hard, but working with a positive and supportive team makes it fun. Erik is a great leader on the boat and is a joy to work alongside. Our bosun Adam and the rest of the 59 North staff ashore are attentive, available, and care deeply about our success. So the hard work becomes a fun challenge, and the payoff is huge. We’re going offshore tomorrow! LET'S GO SAILING!
Leg 14 takes us from Horta back to where we started: Lagos, Portugal. The trip is an estimated seven days. Weather looks excellent, with a couple of stormy spots along the way. I expect us to be in reaching conditions for the majority of this passage. And I would bet a candy bar that we do it in 6 days!
Okay, more later! Thanks for reading.
Cheers, and until next time, HOLD-FAST!
-- Ben Soofer
FALKEN|Skipper&Mate
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Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.