February 22, Day 15 | Mid-Atlantic Pizza Shop! Day 13…? Or something like that. The days fly by as we sit in shorts and sunglasses, basking in the sun and listening to music. The weather has really been on our side. Apart from the high pressure with no wind, we are now forcing our way through by engine. On the other hand, it feels like a little sun holiday in the middle of the Atlantic—not bad for us coming from the North.
The morning watch was nicely visited by 15-20 dolphins who seemed to enjoy Adrianne's company. When the wind lets us down, we find other joys. Besides nice music on deck, we usually discover treats in the kitchen’s hiding places, with a little help from hidden talents like Vegard fixing pancakes for breakfast and Ken baking the best pizzas a few hours later—all in an oven that passed its best a few decades ago.
The night that passed was really dark. Now the old man in the moon has disappeared for a while, and last night some stars tried to act as a night light but didn’t get very far with it. With that said, we have now done a safety check on deck, gone through sheets and lines, fittings and blocks—all before the downhill race we hope to have in the last 24 hours, starting Monday morning.
It now feels like we are a slightly bigger dot on the map as we slowly approach the GC with 530 NM to go! GC—here we come!
Jacob Gellerstam, Crew Adrianne
crew@59-north.com
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
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.