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
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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.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.