Day 10 At-Sea
2256 Ship’s Time
13º 08’ N, 059º 06’ W
Steering 305º at 11-13 knots
I really wanted to name our Farr 65 ‘MILLENNIUM FALKEN’, for obvious reasons, and despite her officially registered name as NORDIC FALKEN, to me, she’s still the former. Never before has she lived up to that name like she is tonight.
We’re on the home stretch towards Barbados, 30 miles from the northern tip of the island, the loom of the lights ashore now visible off the port beam. FALKEN is still under spinnaker, our second straight night flying the big pink kite by the light of the moon, and we’re getting our money’s worth tonight. We are flat out FLYING, easily averaging 11 knots in the lulls and hitting surfs over 16. It’s the ride of our lives tonight with the moon bright overhead, stars all around, and a perfect tradewind breeze at the perfect angle propelling us through our own outer space.
This will very likely be the last blog from this passage. In a few hours we’ll drop the kite and round the top of the island, heading to our planned anchorage off Speightstown in the north of the island to stop and swim and exhale, reflecting on the trip before hauling up and heading into the dock when the magic spell will dissipate and our real lives will set in again. We’ve sailed 2,134 miles and counting, with just another 40 or so to go, in just under 11 days. It’s way too early to reflect on this crossing, my 8th of the Atlantic, and it’s too soon still to think about what I’m going to eat for my first meal ashore.
So I’ll go back out into the cockpit now and coach the next few crewmembers on the helm in what will very likely be the best night of sailing of their lives.
// Andy
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Turning the corner
Yesterday found Falken on a Northward course, still heeled to port, climbing and falling over waves. Sunrise this morning found Falken in an entirely different condition, one familiar to her, but not yet to the current crew. And then a truly magic moment, a pod of dolphins at least fifty members strong came to dance on Falken’s bow wave. We are now joyfully headed northeast, on course toward our eventual destination of Prince Rupert. Falken has turned a corner.
Onwards and upwards
Today is set to be the calmest day of our trip so far, waves subdued, wind veering off more south-east, light clouds. What an exhilarating ride it has been, beating upwind non-stop directly north for 6 straight days! What ahead of us is a mostly downwind sail to Prince Rupert, but a very exciting one. This makes it an interesting few days going fast and closely watching the weather, and I’m very much looking forward to it. The crew is happy, everyone seems to be getting good rest, enjoying watches and time in between.
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.