Next Stop, Tuamotus!
12 May, 2025 | 1340 Ship’s Time | Full-Sail, Beam Reaching
I wasn’t sure we’d ever get out of Nuku Hiva. After spending over two weeks on anchor in a rolly Taiohae Bay, both Emily and I were ready for a change of scenery. We’re not your typical cruisers—after a passage we tend to sit tight in one place and recover, doing small boat projects, going exploring ashore where we can, but generally not moving the boat. For one, FALKEN is very difficult to sail short-handed. Handling the mainsail is the tough part; just flaking it on the boom requires three to four people and a deliberate plan. Plus, we’re happy to sit tight, and normally we only have five days between the end of one trip and the start of another.
But in the Marquesas, we had more time. Partly because we were ahead of schedule on the passage (I always allow more time on the longer trips), and partly because we knew that resources would be scarce in that remote archipelago, and if we did have any problems on the crossing, it would take more time than usual to sort them out. As it happened, we had a pretty uneventful crossing, and besides dropping the jib topsail off for a minor repair with Kevin at Nuku Hiva Yacht Services, we had a pretty mellow stopover. Make sure to read my blog from our hike with Tangy & Ana in the valley near Hakaui, which is posted on The Quarterdeck.
And yet, when the crew finally arrived on Saturday, the island didn’t seem to want us to leave. It’s just the start of the rainy season in the Marquesas, and boy did it show. For almost two weeks Emily and I enjoyed sunshine and the odd shower. I went for several jogs on shore (and got overheated!), and we had starry nights. But leading up to crew arrival, the weather took a turn, and on Sunday, yesterday, when we had planned to depart in the late afternoon, the rains turned biblical. All through the valley in Taiohae, waterfalls sprung up out of nowhere and the harbor turned into a muddy trough of washed-out debris. We couldn’t run the watermaker, but then we had so much water streaming off of our sun awning that we managed to fill our tanks in an hour, redirecting the flow right into the open deck fill.
So we sat tight, and woke up to sunshine this morning and a green light for departure. As I type this, FALKEN is out of the lee now of Ua Pou and sailed fast on a beam reach in bright sunshine and deep blue water, having covered 42 miles in our first five hours or so. The remnants of yesterday’s rains, though, were visible even 20 miles offshore—we sailed past an enormous tree stump, probably half the length of the boat and a few feet thick. A scary thought in the dark…
It’s hot and sunny in the cockpit, and the off-watch crew is taking advantage of the shade up on the bow, sitting on the windward rail behind the jib and watching the waves go by. Feels very good to be at sea again.
// Andy
andy@59-north.com
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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.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.