20º 29.8’ N / 040º 23.40.9’ W
By early Sunday morning, we have the 3rd reef in the main with the wind off our starboard quarter. After two days of heavier weather helm, the crew is presented with a perfectly balanced sail plan. The winds are still 25-38 knots, but we are back to fingertip control on the wheel. Watch B heads off to bed at 0200, and Watch A has the task of rigging the spinnaker pole through the night to allow us to sail wing on wing. This gives us the ability to sail another 20 degrees downwind, giving us a course to steer directly towards Antigua.
As the sun rises in the east, the clouds are pushed away and we are presented with a beautiful sunny day. The winds abate and are now 20-25 knots. The temperatures are becoming warmer as each nautical mile slips beneath our keel. I felt today was a reset for the FALKEN crew. We all commented how tired we were yesterday. Adrenaline from helming was keeping us awake, and as the pressure came off, we all went to our berths tired but content, knowing that the boat would gently rock us off to sleep.
As I sit on deck writing today’s blog, the yankee is poled out and FALKEN is a freight train running down the track pointed directly towards Antigua. What else is going on? Sarah is stretching and doing her yoga on the cockpit floor, Brendan is reading about sail trim in the yacht master’s book, Derek is on the helm, and I am enjoying and appreciating our time at sea. Our crewmates are blissfully sleeping on their six hours off to the gentle rocking of the boat.
I also feel that all of us have settled into life at sea. All outside influences have long been forgotten as we focus on standing watch, drinking tea, hydrating, eating when you can, and sleeping at every opportunity. This has been a lifelong dream to sail an ocean. I can’t imagine any better way of fulfilling such a dream as signing onto FALKEN as a working crew member. The boat is safe, fully prepared, rigged, and equipped for whatever Mother Nature can throw at us. With Emily and Mia in charge and all of us as willing crew, it is a marvelous experience that I will forever treasure.
The only thing that would make it better would be sharing it directly with my family. However, in this regard, we have found the balance of coastal cruising on our own boat in the Pacific Northwest, with me (Dad) getting his ocean miles through 59 North. I will leave the blog here with a big thank you for all the family and friends sending us their best wishes. As information, we read the comments at mealtime in the cockpit with all crew.
Scott
Calgary, Alberta, Canada (now 1765 nm offshore - mid Atlantic)
crew@59-north.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.