11°32.9' N 025°46.2' W
October 10, 2025 | 21:53 UTC | 11°32.9' N 025°46.2' W | Life on the Heel
This day started with another calm morning motoring through the doldrums. We’ve been very lucky to be spared from many squalls during our passage through these latitudes. Life onboard has been quite luxurious some of these days with good food, great company, and time to rest before the next part of our trip.
We got a nice morning shower when a cute rain cloud flew by, continued by oven pancakes made by Lance, and ended our morning shift with seeing some whale spouts in the distance. During the day, headwinds picked up and at one point a squall hit us (for the first time?), which made us put in a second reef in the main. Everyone was just happy to get some action after the calm days. Morale onboard was further boosted when Vilgot the legend made fish tacos for dinner from the Wahoo we caught yesterday. Many cheers all around!
Now we are trying to make as much way north as possible to avoid a weather system building, which Erik is following closely and briefs us about daily. Squalls pop up from nowhere here and some can grow quite big. We want to stay as far away as possible. In the meantime, we have 220M left as the crow flies to Cape Verde, planning to sweep by before starting our last leg of this passage up to the Canary Islands.
We are back to a life on the heel – but like Brittany says, you just got to lean into it!
David | ADRIENNE II Apprentice
crew@59-north.com
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Ketch us if you Kan
Falken is soon to carry on our preferred route of South, back to (hopefully) warmer climates. We’re all excited to set off and see more of this wild landscape as we head down to Victoria. A thermal trough over Vancouver combined with an offshore high pressure creating funneling NW’ly winds means it is due to be pretty fruity on the 9th. This passage is just under 600 miles, relatively short for Falken, but I’m sure we’ll be kept entertained with dramatic scenery, wildlife and weather!
Final Blog
Falken and her crew arrived safely into port last night around 8pm boat time, 10pm Prince Rupert time. Some spicy weather was anticipated, but luckily the 35kt gusts and 2.5 meter waves were no match for this expert crew. We had an exceptionally smooth docking, despite it being Alex's first time parking this year (!). We all agreed that this was a very special group of people—I for one am so impressed with how everyone stayed so positive, helpful, and appreciative of humor despite an arguably challenging passage. We'll all return home significantly saltier than we were when we left, a mark of a passage properly sailed.
Lessons and a Gift
The biggest lesson is the helm. The lesson here is that even if you don't think you can do it over and over again with no sleep, cold and damp, it has to be done and so it can be done. Flying fish are cool, dolphins are really really cool, but the coolest of them all are the whales. And most of all Alex: "Find your center Carla. Always know where your center is so you can come back to it". He means the helm but it applies to life as well.