Final Day At Sea
September 9, 2024, 06:10 UTC | Approaching Plymouth
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
Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.