baptism of fire
January 7, 2025, 23:45 UTC | Baptism of Fire
Well, that was a breezy start with some impressive swell on the good ship FALKEN on Monday. A baptism of fire perhaps for some, as we made excellent time southeast ahead of the impending high pressure that would invariably cause us issues later. We chose a route east of our planned rhumb line to exploit the forecasted easterlies off the coast of Morocco, and sure enough, it enabled us to sail for most of Tuesday.
As expected, the high has now emerged and we are forced to utilize the iron sail as we make best speed south. To the west of us, another interesting system is driving strong southwesterlies, and we are expecting to see the swell increase again in the coming days.
Another tactical waypoint guides us to the north of Lanzarote, where the trusty northeasterlies promise to build on Thursday morning and hopefully will provide another impressive sail at the back end of our passage. The crew have settled in well despite a little seasickness in the first 24 hours, which is pretty standard. Thankfully, this evening we had a full house at dinner time as color appears to have returned to those initially impacted.
We have been delighted by dolphins and a spectacular sky of stars last night, both of which have lifted the spirits of the crew. Whilst nobody wants to be motor sailing, we have the promise of a stiff breeze to look forward to as we make our approaches to the Canary Island chain.
Emily
EmilyCaruso
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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.