COASTING DOWN BAJA
January 19, 2026 | 1941 Ship’s Time
Off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico
Motoring
Departure day, the first of 2026. Mary and I joked that this was probably the longest lead-up to a passage we’ve ever had - we arrived into San Diego on Saturday, January 10, deliberately a bit early as it’s the first trip of the year and we needed to recommission FALKEN after a 5-week layover. Plus move the boat down from her berth in Dana Point (dockage in San Diego was hard to come by, either too shallow, too expensive or both). As it turned out, Adam & Alex did such a nice job of decommissioning at the end of last season that there wasn’t too much for Mary & I to do. So we sailed her down from Dana Point with a group of volunteer crew and spent the rest of the week doing odd jobs and biding our time until the crew arrival yesterday.
The forecast looked (looks) bleak in terms of wind for sailing. We’ve had sunny skies and warm temps in SoCal, but no wind to speak of, so it was a bonus getting to sail out of the harbor in San Diego today on a light northwesterly. We spotted schooner AMERICA on the horizon, the 141-foot replica of the first boat to win the namesake Cup in 1851. Ryan & I had been aboard on Friday to interview the captain/owner for an upcoming podcast episode and got a tour of the boat. What a ship! Built in 1995 at the same yard as the WOODWIND schooners, Scarano in Albany, New York, she is stunning. It’s impossible to keep a black hull looking clean, but she glowed. They were out on one of their daily whale-watching tours near the Coronado Islands and we maneuvered over for a close fly-by.
I had a close call at customs this morning. Being that FALKEN is a foreign-flagged boat, we’re required to clear out of the USA. I took an Uber to the airport this morning, where the local customs office is, only to find out they were closed on MLK Jr. Day. Thankfully a friendly CBP officer saw me pacing in the hallway and stamped the form I needed, and we were good to go.
Eric, on his 4th passage with 59º North, drove FALKEN off the dock and we hoisted sail in the main channel of San Diego Harbor. A cool breeze was funnelling down the hillsides, so we cut the engine and ghosted along on a flat sea and into the ocean.
It didn’t last though, and while we managed to have a dinner under sail just as the sun was setting off the starboard beam, we furled the Yankee while the dishes were being cleaned up and have been motoring ever since on a glassy sea. The GRIBs are showing more of this for the next few days as we meander down the Baja coast. We should see a seabreeze effect in the afternoons as the land over the desert heats up and sucks in cooler air from the ocean, so we’re optimistic we’ll be able to sail more than the GRIBs are predicting. It’s whale season, so if nothing else we’ll be on the lookout for spouts.
// Andy
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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.