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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Turning the corner
Yesterday found Falken on a Northward course, still heeled to port, climbing and falling over waves. Sunrise this morning found Falken in an entirely different condition, one familiar to her, but not yet to the current crew. And then a truly magic moment, a pod of dolphins at least fifty members strong came to dance on Falken’s bow wave. We are now joyfully headed northeast, on course toward our eventual destination of Prince Rupert. Falken has turned a corner.
Onwards and upwards
Today is set to be the calmest day of our trip so far, waves subdued, wind veering off more south-east, light clouds. What an exhilarating ride it has been, beating upwind non-stop directly north for 6 straight days! What ahead of us is a mostly downwind sail to Prince Rupert, but a very exciting one. This makes it an interesting few days going fast and closely watching the weather, and I’m very much looking forward to it. The crew is happy, everyone seems to be getting good rest, enjoying watches and time in between.
Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.