2037 UTC | 29°21.447’N 018°57.214’W
Sailing
Dearest mother,
I hope my letter finds you well.
Since my last letter, much has occurred on board our dear Adrienne.
First off, on the diesel algae front there is not much to share, as we have held them off well and kept our engines running when we’ve had the need to.
A discussion has arisen on board, this time regarding what constitutes a sauce. Despite several days of detailed arguments, no definition has been found that can readily be agreed upon by all, even though many have been proposed. I shall not bore you with all the details regarding this matter (even though there is much to be said) but I will divulge that our crew’s psychologist, Simon, needed only to hear a few sentences of one such discussion before declaring that ”ah, fourteen days out here was what it took for us all to go insane.” Shortly thereafter, the topic of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich was brought up.
I must say, though, that skipper Erik is an expert at managing these discussions, which can sometimes be heated, usually by readily agreeing with all sides.
It has been said Adrienne sails really well on a broad reach, but alas, I may never know as virtually every mile we’ve sailed has been at an apparent wind angle of less than fifty degrees, and skipper Erik predicts we are set to continue to do so for the last stretch of our our journey.
We now have only eighty miles until we encounter land, and fewer than two hundred to our destination.
I look forward to seeing you upon returning home.
Apprentice Anton
View more passage logs
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.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.