Day 3

Emily Caruso
Emily Caruso
Passage Blog
Monday, April 1, 2024
What a glorious sunrise this morning as we cruise parallel to the coast of Puerto Rico. We set into our night sail with a poled-out jib and preventer on the main as yet another idyllic night sky welcomed us. The conditions held until just a few hours before dawn, as Chris noted an increase in wind and a darkening sky to windward. In good time, we dropped into the second reef and balanced the jib to ride out the first squall of the passage. All went without drama, and we have continued to make good speed with a reduced sail area since. The teams are well into the swing of things now as we welcome a new month, and I'm on the lookout for any naughty crew attempting an April fool.

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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!