Around 0930 UTC we were greeted with wind after a calm night of motoring. The light winds remained constant until 1400, with an average wind speed (AWS) of 16.2 knots. With Chris’s lead, the crew was able to get the spinnaker pole up and set the sails wing-on-wing. The crew made quick work with setting the pole and were all smiles once the Yankee sail was trimmed. I can see the crew’s confidence building as they take the helm and get into the normal routine of the watches. Working with this crew has been a pleasure, with their eagerness to learn and work as a team. Couldn’t have asked for a better crew for this passage. – Athena
View more passage logs
”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.
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.
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.