Sailing North
41°10.8’N 152°34.3’W
Another day has gone by as we continue our approach to the west side of the North Pacific High. Our plan is to carry on north for the next couple of days as the high-pressure system moves further south. Once on the north side of it, we should have the right wind angle to put in a gybe and start pointing at Dixon Entrance.
This system has been giving us some beautiful sailing conditions and we are very much making the most of it. Mary kicked off the day with some pancakes in the morning, and Lovis followed with a quinoa salad for lunch.
We’ve still got the company of the baby albatross following our wake, and some dolphins have made a shy appearance for the first time since slipping lines in Hawaii.
We’re now pretty much halfway there, and a good indication of that is the drop in temperature. There are no more brave people embracing shorts at night, and some sleeping bags are now making their first appearances. Hatches are closed not because of the sea state, but because it’s getting pretty cold down below with them open! It feels weird after such a long time in the horse latitudes to feel cool on the boat again.
Not much to report other than this—very pleasant sailing and everyone is very much into the rhythm of life in the middle of nowhere.
Lots of love,
Alex
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.