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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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.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.