London Departure
Everyone seemed to have a good time exploring London yesterday. We all gathered on the boat for a pre-dinner drink and then headed off to The Dickens Inn at St. Katharine Docks for our supper. We enjoyed the night and ended with a weather and route briefing from Captain Erik. Our next port of call will be Guernsey Island!
This morning we scrubbed the deck, did passage planning, refueled diesel, and then said goodbye to London. The mood onboard is good and watch systems are back on track as we motor along. The boat was kept in good shape and our watches worked great coming here. I think the sailors onboard are happy to keep up the good work when we sail into the English Channel.
Right now we are enjoying cinnamon buns bought from a Swedish bakery in London. We will most probably keep on sailing with the Yankee head-sail when we find some wind offshore. The wind will be on our beam at about 15 knots as we sail southwest. In the English Channel, the forecast promises following winds. We expect to make landfall in Guernsey in about two days from now.
Hold Fast!
- David the apprentice
59ºNorthApprentice
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”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2
After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.
Kauehi conundrum
Kauehi atoll was always on the itinerary—until the forecast made it a gamble not worth taking. Squalls, bommies, a tidal pass, and no clean escape route: sometimes the hardest call in sailing is the one that keeps you out of a place, not in it. The Tuamotus will have to wait.
Hove-to!
Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.