Final Day At Sea
The weather has been extremely fickle around the British Isles this past week, making this an exceptionally challenging passage to plan for. We have been through plans A, B, C, D… trying to find the best ‘next port of call’. Not really sure how far down the alphabet we are at this point. But quite unexpectedly, these alternative routes have made it possible to tick off several bucket-list items for the crew: sailing into London, passing by the White Cliffs of Dover, and a close-up view of the iconic Needles right off the western tip of the Isle of Wight.
For me, this dynamic is one of the real beauties of sailing; you never really know what you will get when you cast off. It has all been possible, however, thanks to the amazing crew onboard, always keeping the mood up. I’m now sitting here half asleep at the chart table, hearing chatter and laughter from the cockpit. And then, “dolphins!” Doesn’t get much better!
Now we are approaching our final destination, Plymouth, where FALKEN will get some TLC over the next couple of weeks. A huge thank you to the fantastic crew and to our awesome FALKEN. I’ve had a blast!
O’hoy—Erik Nordborg
ErikNordborg
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.