Last night in the Southern Hemisphere!
0435 UTC | 01º11.70’S, 148º40.97’W
Sailing
Hello outside world! We’ve had yet another epic birthday onboard SV NORDIC FALKEN, this time it’s celebrating Joey! Joey’s message to friends and family back home is that his birthday was epic. We had such an activity packed day I don’t even know where to begin. Joey’s watch was on deck when the clock struck midnight and we sang him happy birthday and soaked in a gorgeous night full of stars. Then the sunrise watch enjoyed an absolutely beautiful squall pass over bringing golden sunrise rain with rainbows and a precious precious puff of breeze that lasted about 20 glorious minutes. As Mary mentioned in our last post, we have officially entered the ITCZ (doldrums) and we are eking out every lick of breeze we can find out here! The crew woke up to birthday chocolate chip pancakes and the sweet perfection of Moorea pineapple. We faffed around with the sails for a bit and magically managed to switch from a starboard to port then back to starboard tack all without changing our heading more than 30 degrees. Oh the doldrums!
BUT once we were done with that, Mary opened the pool! The whole crew enjoyed a much needed and refreshing dip in about 5000 meters of Pacific Blue! The joy was palpable and smiles were radiating on deck. By 0930, we all felt like we had already lived a fully packed day! As much as Mary and I are pulling our hair out at this lack of breeze, I do actually really enjoy how the first day of the doldrums feels like the last day of school vibes - to use Mary’s words. People breathe easy, the last remaining traces of seasickness fade into memory. Everyone can walk across a level deck again and all the workouts start cranking, craft projects make an appearance on deck, and the kindles come out of their hiding places in everyone’s bunks. Folks have been crafting away and preparing their gifts for Neptunes impending visit tomorrow at happy hour! We made cookies for Joey’s birthday and Mary made us a really tasty fried rice for dinner. We enjoyed a gorgeous sunset tonight which Mary very generously rated 7.2 (if you know her you know that’s high) but then upgraded it to 7.9 because as Bruce mentioned, this is our last sunset in the Southern Hemisphere! Woohoo! By tomorrow at 0620 local time, we should have a fully fledged crew of Shellbacks! Yarrrrr!!!
Phoebe
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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.