Sunday, June 15, 2025 | Kiribati and Rum Punch
Collectively, we misplaced most of Saturday. Arriving in Kiribati on Saturday, ship’s time, we were faced with the disconcerting conundrum of sailing directly into Sunday, Kiribati time, owing to a largish hemorrhoid in the international dateline and a cozy bro-mance between Australia and the Line Islands.
Landfall was grey with low, tumbling clouds, soft seas, and brief bits of sunlight sneaking through the haze. We spotted land around 7:30, first as a fuzz on the horizon which gave way to breaking waves, then palm fronds, and finally the island itself, which ekes its way out of the water at around 12 feet above sea level.
As we anchored, a delegation of the local Sea Turtle Committee On Welcoming Things paid a visit. This mostly involved one of us spotting a bit of turtle snout above water and shouting, "Turtle!" Then the rest of the crew would shout, "Where?!" followed by, "Over there!" by which time the turtle in question had bobbed off to munch some grass elsewhere.
The rest of the day was gloriously filled with the absence of responsibility or changing watches. There were naps, swims, showers, extra credit naps, the inaugural meeting of the Fantasy Romance book club led by our High Lord Adam, Monopoly Deal, fajitas, rum punch, and then, at long last, a full night’s sleep. Indeed, glorious.
We went ashore the next day (either Sunday or Wednesday, we still aren’t sure). Alex, Adam, and Mary spent the entire day trying to track down the customs officer to check us in, which ended with them at the guy’s house talking to his daughters, who variously insisted he was back at the wharf, still at the airport, and actually here in the house had they looked a little harder.
Meanwhile, the crew was dropped at the Lagoon View Resort to get a "guided" "tour" of the island. As we don’t speak Kiribati and it wasn’t apparent if our guide spoke English or Kiribati, a fair amount of gesticulating and arm waving on Tara’s part got us moving towards… well, something. Stacy described it as "Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride meets It’s a Small World After All." We jostled down the rutted tracks between London and Banana, visiting the bustling (empty) airport, salt flats, and beaches. At each turn we waved to the multitude of children just getting out of school who all seemed delighted to see us.
We had lunch at a small restaurant and then went back to the resort to hang out and wait for dinner. Stacy and Orie made friends with a beach dog, Tara tried to steal the neighbor’s motorcycle, and we all enjoyed a few minutes of wifi to check in with friends and family.
We had a great dinner with some of the other guests at the resort, plus the "elders" who turned out to be considerably less elderly than expected and decidedly more Mormon. It was great to spend a meal with new folks and hear about the experiences of the young missionaries living in a part of the world many of them likely didn’t know existed until they received their assignments. It was a clear sign that we needed another good night’s sleep when the most contentious debate we’ve yet had came up—when does nodding off become a doze become a nap become a sleep? Adam Baker has some very detailed opinions on this, it turns out.
Today, we rested a bit more and are prepping the boat to depart, hopefully around 1630. While Adam Baker has strong opinions on the appropriate length of naps, he also noted that "the first third of a trip takes two-thirds of the time, the last two thirds of the trip takes about one-eighth the time." Looking towards the next leg of our adventure, I find he’s absolutely correct.
Jake Davies
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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.