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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”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2
After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.
Kauehi conundrum
Kauehi atoll was always on the itinerary—until the forecast made it a gamble not worth taking. Squalls, bommies, a tidal pass, and no clean escape route: sometimes the hardest call in sailing is the one that keeps you out of a place, not in it. The Tuamotus will have to wait.
Hove-to!
Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.