gybing into position
I’m already having to ask the team what day it is despite being just 48 hours into our epic passage. We started on a mission south with a view to getting below the high pressure that is about to dominate the waters south of the Canaries. Speed is up and down, and we completed our first gybe with the pole yesterday afternoon. The west that we banked took us clear of the Moroccan coast and allowed us to gybe for a second time this morning, setting us back on a SSW course towards Cape Verde.
The next goal is to reach 20N ahead of the building swell that is the result of a deep low well north of us and its associated fronts. From there, we should be able to sail directly towards Antigua, albeit responding to the later forecasts as we proceed.
Derek and Jillian are practicing bringing the sun down to the horizon with the sextant as I type. Sarah is updating our paper charts with the latest fix, and the crew are all lunching on noodles as the watches change over once again.
Last night, the disco jellyfish entertained us with a light display as they bounced off of FALKEN’s hull and left a stream of glowing balls astern of us. I’d say we were well settled into the watches already, which is a very good sign of things to come.
— Emily
EmilyCaruso
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”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.