Day 2

2024-7 | FALKEN | Cuba-Bermuda
Alex Laline Ruiz
Alex Laline Ruiz

laline96@gmail.com

Passage Blog
Saturday, May 4, 2024
Saturday, May 4, 2024

Another day is coming to an end as we watch the sunset go down over the horizon. The good news is that FALKEN is still doing over 9 knots, which means we've done another 210 nautical miles+ day! The bad news is that we're still going upwind... that's right, ever since we left Cuba we've been on a hill—sleeping on an angle, cooking on an angle, socialising on an angle. The crew have been loving it though, and the smooth sea state is what's allowing us to have such great averages.

Chris and I are very excited for the upcoming days and the long-promised forecast for the wind to slowly start veering... only time will tell! In other news, we have experienced a couple of little squalls, everyone has had a shower, and rainbows have been spotted. It's also great to see how no one is suffering from the green monster, even on this constant angle!

I cooked a bolognese tonight and we had lovely discussions about how people eat their spaghetti over dinner. Thank God there aren't any Italians onboard! Much love to everyone! May the 4th be with you from onboard the Millennium Falken.

- Alex

laline96@gmail.com

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”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2

After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.

11/5/2026
”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2

Kauehi conundrum

Kauehi atoll was always on the itinerary—until the forecast made it a gamble not worth taking. Squalls, bommies, a tidal pass, and no clean escape route: sometimes the hardest call in sailing is the one that keeps you out of a place, not in it. The Tuamotus will have to wait.

Mary Vaughan-Jones
10/5/2026
Kauehi conundrum

Hove-to!

Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.

9/5/2026
Hove-to!