First squall of the trip!
0454 UTC | 03 26.44’S 148 52.25’W
Sailing
Our wisest and spryest member on the group, Jim, has a message for his wife in today’s blog! This morning we got our first squall of the trip. An uncommonly swift watch changeover was had just before sunrise this morning, I thought maybe they just want to get to bed - until making it on deck to Jim’s opening remark of ’We’re gonna get our ass whooped’.
Instead of a glorious sunrise to greet us, a big ol stretch of dark cloud with no horizon visible was approaching us. We had been motoring for a couple of hours at this point so whilst I didn’t relish the thought of the downpour, happily for us it also marked the start of a breeze line and we’ve been sailing semi the right direction since. Jim, Joey and Kip - a.k.a. Sea Section/NotTea/The Reefers (their watch name changes daily) - worked quickly to get some reefs in the main, had just about time to pop on a waterproof jacket and hurriedly close all our hatches before the heavens opened. This lasted a couple of hours until the breeze settled and the sun came out, the slumbering crew below blissfully unaware of the action until they saw our soggy coats hanging to dry.
The ITCZ (doldrums) is proving to be quite a large area at the time of our crossing, we’re gearing up for 3-4 days of motoring unfortunately, so we’re eking the most out of the wind we have now. We do know we’re considerably further east that Hawaii, don’t worry we’re not shooting for Alaska quite yet - we’re simply setting ourselves up to not be close hauled when we hit the north east trade winds, currently aiming for a reasonable 60-70AWA!
Neptune is set to visit us soon, a message in a bottle from him was found floating behind the boat at happy hour today. Phoebe and I are the only shellbacks on board at the moment, so it’ll be a busy equator ceremony with 9 pollywogs to initiate!
Joey’s birthday is tomorrow, after some initial upset that we wouldn’t make it to the equator on his birthday, we’ve now reasoned that what better way to start off your 4th decade than crossing the equator the day after!!
Many glows (horizon to horizon stars, the end of the sea sickness, lovely company, awful jokes etc), few glums.
Enough waffle from me, here’s Jim:
"Hi Babe! Well you were right!! There is water to the left,right,behind and forward and it’s beautiful! The first few days of warm windy sailing were interrupted with a little bit of calm and then wow, we encountered a nice rain storm this morning. In a dash below decks for rain gear, before the downpour, netted only the rain jacket. The rain boots and pants remained safe and dry in duffels :) But it was a blast helming in the rain and the scene of the approaching cloud, the rain and the sun trying to peek up through the clouds was awesome. Pants and shoes soaked, wiping the rain droplets from the compass and taking in some much appreciated coolness from the wet breeze. Yep! Water everywhere Darling, just like you said. Please give the grandkids a hug for me and tell’um Grandpa Jim is sailing with some very nice folks and having fun. Blog is just like the radio telephone on Powell Babe: sooo Love, Jim"
Mary
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Turning the corner
Yesterday found Falken on a Northward course, still heeled to port, climbing and falling over waves. Sunrise this morning found Falken in an entirely different condition, one familiar to her, but not yet to the current crew. And then a truly magic moment, a pod of dolphins at least fifty members strong came to dance on Falken’s bow wave. We are now joyfully headed northeast, on course toward our eventual destination of Prince Rupert. Falken has turned a corner.
Onwards and upwards
Today is set to be the calmest day of our trip so far, waves subdued, wind veering off more south-east, light clouds. What an exhilarating ride it has been, beating upwind non-stop directly north for 6 straight days! What ahead of us is a mostly downwind sail to Prince Rupert, but a very exciting one. This makes it an interesting few days going fast and closely watching the weather, and I’m very much looking forward to it. The crew is happy, everyone seems to be getting good rest, enjoying watches and time in between.
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.