Day 3 at sea
32º 10.4’N, 001º 51.7’W
14.25 local time
32º 10.4’N / 001º 51.7’W
We have now been underway for 3 days and before departing, we thought we would be close to the Canaries by now. As we mentioned before, the weather has been very interesting with more wind on the nose than we could have imagined. Upwind sailing normally has a negative clang to it, but for us, the wind has been just strong enough, and the swell small enough, that we have had some amazing sailing.
We departed Lagos a day earlier than planned, knowing it may take a bit extra time to get south. We have time and it doesn’t really matter that we are at times pointing towards Newfoundland, and on the next tack towards Morocco. To put it in perspective, the passage is just under 650 nm on the rhumb line (the straight line between Lagos and Las Palmas). FALKEN can easily sail 200 nm per day if we have a good breeze on the beam or behind, and the passage would take just over 3 days. We’ll see how long it will take us, and how many miles we will have been sailing.
Last night was another beautiful night. The clouds disappeared after dinner and we had a crystal clear night full of stars. The wind was on the beam and FALKEN was like a magic carpet flying along. When I got up on my watch at 0800 this morning, the wind was lighter, and we lasted about an hour until we had to get the motor on. When we were down under 3 kts of speed and the swell started to kick us around, it was time to roll up the yankee and turn the engine on. According to the GRIBs, it should be filling in sometime this afternoon.
We were hoping for another swim in the ocean as the wind died, but the swell is a bit too big so we opted for the second best, a warm shower on the aft deck. I will start cooking dinner in about two hours; we have been eating at 1730 to have dinner before the sun sets. It is getting warmer as we are heading south and I am in shorts and t-shirt for the first time since leaving Portugal. Life is good onboard :)
Cheers from Mia and the FALKEN Crew
mia@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.