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January 4, 2025, 10:00 UTC | Pre-Departure
It is a new year and a new season is about to start on FALKEN! I came down to Lagos with the family before the new year to have a quick vacation before the season started. We have enjoyed playing on the beaches, exploring the side streets of Lagos, shopping at the farmers market on Saturday, and getting a few small projects done on FALKEN in between. Lagos has been a frequent stop, and I first came here back in 2012 when Andy and I sailed a Saga 43, KINSHIP, with ARC Europe. We also sailed in here with ISBJORN after our summer up in Svalbard, and both FALKEN and ICEBEAR have been here multiple times.
Emily, who is the skipper for this leg, arrived late on the 1st, and since then we switched into work mode and are prepping FALKEN for her next passage. I thought I was smart to get the major provisioning done before Emily arrived, but didn't realize until I stepped into Pingo Doce (the supermarket closest to the marina) that it was New Year's Eve and the store was packed. Anyhow, lots of good food is now added to FALKEN for the next leg.
Crew will arrive today at 1 pm. We have been monitoring the weather and it looks like we'll sit out some weather on Sunday and depart after that. We are kicking off the 2025 season with an all-female crew, eager to jump onboard and make our way towards Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Bethany and Jeana came down the docks yesterday to check out FALKEN and I am sure the rest of the crew have been spying on us from the shore.
Our aim is to send in daily blogs to the website, so check back to hear about our adventures as we head south!
HOLD FAST!
Mia
mia@59-north.com
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.