Next stop…
Latitude: 07°23.7'S, Longitude: 153°41.2'W
Pos. 07°23.7S 153°41.2W
Last night I came on watch and, for once, there wasn’t a single squall in sight. The engine was on, the moon was shining, and a light breeze was present. We decided at that point to turn the engine off and try to sail with the little breeze there was. FALKEN started gliding silently into the night at a speed of 3 knots, but with barely any sea state to throw her around, it was like being in space for a while. The wind gods must have appreciated our efforts, as only 30 minutes later the wind picked up and FALKEN followed it like a bird.
I’ve just woken up for my day watch. The sun is shining, there is a good 15-knot breeze, and FALKEN is powering along at 9-10 knots. We’re officially in the trade winds, and it feels good, because at one point our ETA was 215 days and 3 hours.
Yesterday we made the decision to aim for Christmas Island instead of Palmyra Atoll. The reasoning for this is our timeline and how aiming for Palmyra would put us against the trade winds—not ideal. It also means a bit more time for us to explore one place and a more comfortable ride to the Hawaiian Islands.
It’s still hard to realize in what part of the world we’re sailing. I keep transporting myself back to the Polynesian people sailing from island to island like we go to the supermarket, and it makes me wonder what incredible navigators and full-round adventurers and sailors they were.
Our ETA to Christmas Island should be some point between Saturday and Sunday. Expect no connection, and we’re going to keep our watch on boat time, as otherwise we will lose a day to the timeline. We will explain on another blog, but for now, looking forward to dropping the anchor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Lots of love,
Alex
Write your comments below and I’ll forward them to the boat with the daily update :)
Mia (shore support)
laline96@gmail.com
View more passage logs
”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.