kind biscay
So a quarter of the way after 36 hours and Biscay has so far been very kind to us. After reaching across the Western Approaches to the English Channel under Yankee and Main, the wind veered as predicted, so we gybed and hoisted the big pink kite to try to maintain speed. After a full day under spinnaker, it was time to drop her and ready the boat for an overnight. With batteries in need of a charge, it seemed smart to use the engine for a little extra propulsion as we need to clear ahead of the next inbound low pressure system.
Early issues with seasickness have abated, and the crew all have hearty appetites after a day of sail trim and changes. It looks as though we may have some upwind sailing after all, as conditions after Finisterre differ from earlier forecasts. Into the night we go...
- 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.