20º 29.8’ N / 040º 23.40.9’ W
January 26, 2025, 20:46 UTC | 18:46 Ship’s Time | 20º 29.8’ N / 040º 23.40.9’ W | Scott’s Lifelong Dream
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
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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.