February 21, Day 13 | Atlantic Crossing Update
At the dude ocean ranch, we gather around the salt-encrusted, red-glowing compass in the aft cockpit for the night watches. We tell stories, many utterly unfit to print. As the distance traveled on the display is now in the 1900s and 2000s, we tell stories from each year we lived. Our spirits are high. If you could hear us, you would hear giggling and roaring laughter all the time.
Yesterday, we were still sailing. It was ocean sailing at its best. Waves roll in as walls of water behind the helm. They lift the boat meters above the landscape, giving us a good view of the water hills and valleys around us—a landscape that is unique and to be replaced with another unique landscape within a few counts. The horizon is wavy. Caravans of jagged wave shapes careen to faraway beaches.
As a wave travels under us, the boat pitches down and then up as we surf down the wave. Our speed picks up, sometimes up to 14 or 15 knots. We land softly at the bottom of the wave in a pool of white water. Steering is a dream and feels like dancing, swinging between gently providing direction and feeling where the boat wants to go. Too little direction and the boat would round up; too much and we are clumsily slaloming.
Today we are motoring through the Azore highs back to the trade winds that blow around the Canaries. We are on autopilot. It takes fewer people to stand watch, so some of us are catching up on sleep. Normally, the watch system won’t give you more than 5.5 hours of consecutive sleep. Now, with some planning, you can get close to a full night’s rest. I snoozed and lost. This morning, two playful minke whales joined us when some of us were still asleep. Around noon, two Bermuda longtail birds took a look or two at us. These oceanic birds only come to land to nest. They are an endangered species with 3,000–4,000 left.
Other than you might expect from 10 guys on a ship, we keep the ship shipshape. This afternoon we had another spontaneous deep clean. There is a bowl of rising dough on the galley counter for hamburger buns. In the evening we celebrate fredagsmys (Swedish expression for a cozy Friday night) with hamburgers and fries. This is getting repetitive but needs to be said: the dinner is amazing again.
Most of us have booked accommodation on land now that we know better when we will arrive at Gran Canaria. We expect to make landfall coming Wednesday or Thursday. Skipper and old salt Erik reminds us that the trip will be over sooner than we think and tells us to try and take as much in as possible. Just five more days on the bouncy castle we call the Atlantic.
Allard Schipper, Adrienne Crew
crew@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.