Day 4
May 29, 2024
With 223 nm sailed in the last 24 hours, sailing has been fun and exciting. FALKEN is powered up nicely, and the crew are doing an amazing job helming, keeping her as if she were sailing on rails. Sailors often have their ways to mimic that sensation of the boat flying through the waves, underlined by their eyes brightening up in excitement. I am sure that these days spent together on FALKEN will be referred to under those terms more than once.
But sailing is not just all fun and games, and crossing an ocean can be a serious challenge—be it technical or personal. Changing your sleep patterns to accommodate a watch system, being in a new environment with new people, sleeping on a constantly moving bed in a noisy environment, sometimes dealing with seasickness, and continuing to be ready on the hour for a new watch, watch after watch. It’s no easy feat. And it is always beautiful to witness how people deal with these challenges, most often building strong bonds, looking out for and caring for each other.
By now, everyone seems to have taken their bearings in this strange environment, redefining a new comfort zone. This change of perspective can bring great insight into one’s life. And this, on its own, can give meaning to the whole experience and to the challenge.
- Manot
ManotBerger
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Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.