DAY 4
Spinnaker day! After an extremely peaceful night ghosting along the southern coast of Portugal amongst electric dolphins and under a blanket of stars, FALKEN enjoyed a day of building breezes and a chance to stretch our legs downwind. Shortly after sunrise, we jibed the ship onto starboard tack and headed SSW. I was conscious of not heading too far west and towards Gibraltar, where all the recent orca encounters have been. In fact, if I’d had a choice, we’d have sailed west and out into the Atlantic from Sagres, not going anywhere near Gibraltar at all. Alas, that elongated ridge of high pressure was centered just offshore Sao Vincente, and so if we wanted to sail, we needed wind, and the wind was to the east.
Alex & Mia came on deck to lead the crew in hoisting the big pink kite. Everything takes ten times longer with new crew on the first try, but out here we have nothing but time, so it took the time it needed to get everything set right. With Mia on the helm, we pulled the downline on the sock and the 3,000-sq.ft. S2 opened up in the breeze and FALKEN surged ahead.
We spent the day sailing under the chute, dousing it before dinnertime and getting all the lines and gear stowed for the night. It’s November, and while it’s nice and warm here off southern Portugal, the nights are long. It gets dark around 1730 and doesn’t get light again until around 0700, so the night watches are long. But the stargazing more than makes up for it. We passed around the binoculars last night, taking turns looking at Orion’s belt and the millions of stars in the background that you’d never see ashore.
At sunrise today, we sheeted in the sails and tacked. Now we’re close-hauled, aiming ENE and starting the long upwind slog back towards Lagos. We’re taking bets on how many miles we’ll actually sail, since we have to tack upwind. It’s about 100 miles in a straight line, but we’ll do many more than that against the wind. It’s a light wind though, and very pleasant out here! — Andy
andy@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.