The weather has been shifty as we pass through a low today. We were greeted this morning with light winds and gybed onto a port tack to maintain our course. Rain quickly followed suit and ended around 1400. FALKEN has maintained a steady pace of 8.6 speed over ground for the last sixteen hours as we sail through to 1,157 nautical miles. It has been bittersweet, having completed the halfway mark to Horta yesterday. The crew had a celebration, thanks to Manot for making ice cream for dessert. As we continue on our transit, it’s becoming more difficult to find ‘glums’; even with this grey weather, the crew has been positive and full of laughter. One thing that has grown on me through sailing is the connections you create with people through these experiences. There is a tendency to forget time, and the days just blur into moments. These moments and challenges you are faced with out here can create friendships you wouldn’t expect. It has been wonderful getting to know everyone here and watching them flourish in this environment. //Athena
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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.