March 21, 2025 | Departure!
The crew arrived yesterday on a sweaty afternoon in the Flamenco Marina, Panama. You could feel the excitement of everyone coming on board. Some old friends meeting again, some new people stepping foot on Falken for the first time. All really eager to start this journey towards the beautiful Galapagos.
After a warm introduction and the safety briefings, we ended the day with a nice dinner on shore while the sun was setting behind us.
This afternoon we left the marina after some final checks, instructions, and fueling. It was still quite hot, but the clouds appeared so the sun was not burning us alive anymore. After roughly two hours of easy sailing, we poled out the yankee—something I wasn’t yet familiar with, so that was interesting to do.
We are currently surfing goosewinged, doing around 10 knots. We just had an amazing pita with halloumi, homemade hummus, tzatziki, and avocado for dinner, made by our lovely Mary. This all with a beautiful sunset next to us—what is there more to wish for?
Kind regards,
Laura, FALKEN Apprentice, Leg 5, 2025
FALKENCrew
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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.