Good day from the beautiful clear blue Caribbean Sea! We had a lot of fun surfing Falken down long ocean swells today. It feels similar to snowboarding but on water instead of snow—an adrenaline rush for sure! Our top speed was about 14 knots while surfing down a swell. As crew, we are learning how to keep the boat on a mostly straight course instead of only back and forth. The boat takes longer to respond than a car when turning, so it’s a new skill for us. One of the crew likens it to off-roading in sand.
Yesterday we had freshwater showers sitting on the back of Falken, watching the blue waters of the Caribbean flow by behind us with Falken traveling at 10 knots (about 18.5 km/hr).
Last night we enjoyed patches of bright glowing water. The glowing is caused by bioluminescence—a type of plankton, I believe. The food has been delicious, the highlight being an olive and sea salt focaccia bread made by Manot today. It was devoured rapidly.
- Janelle, crew on the Falken
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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.