Tuesday, June 17, 2025 | Sailing north to Hawaii
Yesterday (still not sure what day of the week that was) started with Alex heading out to Customs and getting us checked out of Kiribati. The crew had more down time—more naps, more reading, more swims, and definitely more showers. Adam walked us through how the steering mechanism works, Mary walked us through weather, and Alex got back in no time. Mary made some delicious soup (in fact, we may be having soup day and night for a few more days with how much we made) and took personal sandwich orders to have dinner ready for our sporty sail that evening. She scoffed at my request to put in ketchup; we have a lot to talk about!
We lifted anchor around 2:30 pm and set sail—full main out at first and quickly down to a double reef as we got out of the lee of the island in 22+ knots of apparent wind. We had some spicy sailing time for a bit—Jake and Adam called it “Cholula hot”—before the winds mellowed down for some “Tabasco level sailing.” Sunset was gorgeous with some dolphins paying us a visit and wishing us luck for our journey forward.
I’ve finally made my choice in answer to Mary’s hard question: If you had a choice between having large wings that you couldn’t detach, or having octopus arms, which one would you choose? I’m afraid I’ve gone with the much less glamorous but practical choice of octopus arms—and I’m in good company with Mary and Alex, who have chosen the same way.
The winds died this morning and we are motoring. We anticipate the winds should fill in later today. For now, it is time to get some soup…
- Richa
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- Mia (shore support)
crew@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.