1151 UTC | 31°48.900’N 023°07.891’W
Sailing
Randomish thoughts as we get closer to port.
Two things I picked up on my way out of home more or less last minute which have been brilliant. A beanie I thought would not be useful as we were due to sail from the Caribbean to the Canaries and I just didn’t think it would be that cold. At times, it was. Plus a beanie is great to shove down the back of your PFD to give a bit of padding against the deck, (also good to sit on). It’s good to shove down your foulie top when it’s not so cold that you need to be fully zipped up, but a bit of wind protection helps. That’s also a handy store for emergency gummie bears. If you are worried about fluff at this stage, take a look at where you are.
The second thing is a pair of rubber soled espadrilles. Way better than any deck shoes I brought with me apart from ocean boots.
Controversially, I think some bananas are good for the first few days of an offshore passage, especially if the weather is boisterous, (or active as the crew calls it). If you take as much of the stem off as you can, it saves spoiling other fruit to some degree and they are full of vitamins and just enough sugar to keep you going. Plus they taste the same way coming up as going down.
Mouthwash is handy as it’s not always possible to clean your teeth when you would like to, and, see point 2 about bananas. My least useful item is the smart watch which is telling me I’m sleep deprived and maybe some soothing sounds, like the sea, would help me drift off to sleep.
Simon, Adrienne II Crew
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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.
Making the most of it
This passage has thrown pretty much every atmospheric condition imaginable at us. It reminds us not only of how much we’ve learned, but of how far we’ve literally come since that acceleration zone off the northwest corner of Oahu. The resilience this group has shown has been nothing short of incredible, and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of it. Maybe that’s why it’s the hardest passages we remember the most. Not because they were easy, but because they reminded us what we’re capable of.
