Hot Heat & Cold Mango
April 24, 2025, 2033 Ship’s Time | 60 Miles East of Hiva Oa | Sailing
It’s HOT. And very humid. This equatorial sailing—nothing can prepare you for the heat! When you sleep, whatever side of your body is against the cushions and the sheet leaves a sweaty imprint. It’s like a crime scene outline, but in sweat. It’s gross.
Outside, it’s nicer in the breeze, but then you’ve got to avoid the sun. We have an umbrella rigged up in the cockpit to provide a little extra shade, despite the clear superstitious implications (umbrellas onboard, like bananas, are very bad luck at sea). With the wind lighter now and FALKEN sailing gybing angles to keep the sails full, there’s even less apparent wind moving across the boat. The only shade before noon is a small sliver next to the mast on the port side, which has become a popular spot for the on-watch while taking turns helming.
FALKEN can’t have a bimini shade over the helm when we’re under sail—the running backstays would interfere with it. Frankly, while I enjoy the shade of a good bimini, I hate them in practice. You can’t see the sails and they’re always in the way. So instead, we take turns on the helm while the other watch-standers, in the highest heat of the day, hide in the shade by the mast or under the dodger, or escape down below for a respite from the sun. It works. Today, Erik introduced an added wrinkle on the helm—every so often he simply grabbed the freshwater hose and sprayed himself down. He declared it the best spot on the boat.
After dinner tonight, Emily and I presented a little pre-landfall treat to try and beat the heat. Several days ago, Emily introduced an after-dinner “cold water cocktail”—which is as simple as it sounds, a glass of water from a jug that’s been in the fridge! After these hot days in the sun, nothing tastes so good.
Almost, anyway. Tonight we upped the ante and, after our cold water cocktail, distributed mango grog—two shots of rum in a tall stainless glass, topped with ice-cold mango puree that’s been hiding in the bottom of the fridge since leaving San Cristobal. The jury is out on whether it was the greatest thing we’ve had on the passage thus far, or if it was just a nasty tease because we couldn’t have seconds. Morale improved. Mission accomplished.
We’re 60 miles out now, but still not sailing in a straight line. The breeze is up a touch, so at least we’re sailing faster now in the wrong direction. There’s not enough wind to set the pole and sail dead-downwind, so we’re sailing gybing angles to keep the sails full and the boat moving. We should be able to gybe in a few more hours, which will put us on a favored course for Hiva Oa, and with luck we’ll make landfall in daylight tomorrow.
Only a few more sweaty sleep off-watches to go.
// Andy
andy@59-north.com
View more passage logs
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.