Crew Arrives
July 19, 2024 | Arrival to Bergen
Hjelmås, Bergen
It is 7:50 on FALKEN in Bergen and most of the crew is already up. Coffee has been hot for almost an hour and breakfast is served. I asked how they slept and one said, “Not really, lots of new noises,” and some others, “I had a full night’s sleep, without the teenagers in the house. This has been so quiet.” We have quiet time until 8 am; crew can be up but should be respectful of those who are still sleeping. At 8, I am tempted to jump in for a swim and take a last shower before taking off, and at 9 we will start the day. The plan is to move the boat (sail if there is wind) south to an anchorage and fuel up. The weather will dictate the departure.
A full crew of women arrived at 1 pm yesterday. This is one of our annual ‘All Women’s Passage’ trips with Nikki Henderson as skipper and me, Mia Karlsson, as mate. After a short introduction and familiarization with the boat, we dove straight into safety briefings both below and on deck, getting everyone familiar with the boat, running around finding all thru-hulls, and fitting lifejackets. It’s a long list to go over.
After a long day of prep, we all gathered in the cockpit for dinner: quinoa salad with salmon and tzatziki! It was the first time I cooked salmon in this boat’s oven and I think I was pretty lucky—it turned out great. Before we knew it, it was 9:30 pm with the sun still high in the sky!
- Mia
mia@59-north.com
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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.