We released the mooring ball (actually four small balls) and bid farewell to Cocos Island just as the sun was rising. I would like to say that we had smooth sailing all day, but the reality was very smooth motoring. An attempt was made to pull out the Yankee, but that was an exercise in futility, and it was quickly pulled back in, so we motored on. This has been the most pleasant day of motoring, since the sea is very calm, almost perfect for water skiing. Relaxing in my forward cabin berth when off watch, I could hear the sea swishing along as Falken stayed very stable and flat.
After the evening meal, we shared our glums and glows once again. The only gloom was leaving Cocos Island. Glows included watching the Cocos boobies land on the bow pulpit. At one point we counted 21, with several of those trying to balance on the lifelines. Another glow was the simple pleasure of some ice cubes to fill our water bottles in the heat of the day. And of course, the peacefulness of moving along the Pacific Ocean with a great crew.
// Anne
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First squall of the trip!
"We're gonna get our ass whooped" — not the sunrise greeting anyone had in mind, but Jim called it. The oldest and sharpest hand on board steered them straight through the squall, soaked to the bone and loving every minute of it. He's got a message for his wife, and it turns out she was right about the water.
Sextants, Polynesian Wayfinding, Captain Cook, and Tupaia, Oh My!
Somewhere north of Tahiti and south of Hawaii, aboard a 65-foot rocket of a sailboat loaded with GPS and Starlink, we pulled out a sextant. Not as a novelty—as a navigation tool. Because it turns out the 2,500-mile passage from Tahiti to Hawaii is less a ocean crossing and more a living museum of how humans have always answered the same stubborn question: where am I, and how do I get home? Captain Cook had his chronometers and math; his Polynesian crewmate Tupaia had the stars, the swells, and a map of the Central Pacific stored entirely in his head—and somehow, they were asking the exact same thing.
Star gazing and celebrating
Birthdays at sea hit differently—no cake, no candles, just brownies from a rolling galley and the Milky Way as a backdrop. It's day three aboard, and the skipper's birthday is just one of three to celebrate before landfall. Meanwhile, six crew members sat in silence last night, not from exhaustion or tension, but because the Southern Cross was doing something worth watching.