Happy Birthday Mary!
Sunday, June 9, 2025 | 09:45 Local Time
Good morning from the middle of the South Pacific! FALKEN has been ticking miles off nicely and the crew are all well into the watch system. Today we woke up to a much more squally day, with lightning and thunderstorms around us indicating our proximity to the ITCZ. The forecast is promising, and with a light day ahead expected tomorrow, everything seems to be as straightforward as sailing goes.
The dilemma is which island do we aim for: Palmyra Atoll or Christmas Island? I know, right? What a terrible decision to make! Both of them have their pros and cons, but looking at the weather ahead, we are currently heading towards Christmas Island, which is currently lying 970nm NW of our position.
Today is a special day for our First Mate Mary, who is turning 30! She doesn’t know it yet, but we have a little present for her and Adam is baking a birthday cake from scratch.
Lots of love,
- Alex
Send your birthday message to Mary in the comments and I’ll forward it to the boat with the daily update.
- Mia (shore support)
laline96@gmail.com
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
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.