Day 6 At-Sea
12º 54’ N, 041º 36’ W
2041 Ship’s Time
12º 54’ N, 041º 36’ W
Steering 275 at 9-10 knots
The sky is as dark and as full of stars as it has been yet. This is very likely the result of the passage of a front further north early this morning, which came with a backing and freshening of the wind. We had around 20 knots for the better part of the day. The whole crew is well experienced by now, and steered our vessel playfully and with confidence. As the waves picked up, the surfs kept getting better and better, regularly hitting 12-13 knots. The fun factor was and still is undeniable.
At 1357 Ship’s time, we crossed the bar of 1,000 miles sailed. We celebrated this little milestone with a big shout and a fruit salad, after which we all freshened up with a shower for the second time on this trip. The smell of fresh soap onboard is a gentle reminder of our lives ashore and puts our experience onboard into perspective.
As if to top off the day with one last highlight, Jen and Rene served up a lovely couscous at sunset, with spices that Rene brought us straight from Morocco. This was our first true sunset, after the northeasterlies finally managed to clear the dusty haze that has clouded the horizon for days. As the day merged into the moonless night, the stars appeared brighter than ever before, revealing our Milky Way. Of course, I couldn’t resist the temptation to bring out the binoculars for a quick glance at the Orion nebula and the Andromeda galaxy, both visible to the naked eye. Seeing our sister galaxy and the brightly lit gas cloud always seems to awaken deep philosophical thoughts. I am left with a profound feeling of voyaging—over sea, and on another scale, through the universe.
ManotBerger
View more passage logs
”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.