settling in
January 18, 2025, 10:20 UTC | 25º 30.1’ N 016º 12.13’ W | Settling In
Good morning! It’s 10 am here. Jillian is making me a cup of coffee and Paolo is at the helm. Jeanette is waiting for her turn at the helm and Kevin is having some breakfast. We are now 24 hours into the passage—a long way to go, but we have already covered 173 nm since we left Las Palmas.
The team is split into two watches. We have the A team on at the moment, and the B team is hard asleep in their bunks. I am sure as time goes on, there will be a more creative name assigned to their teams!
All is good onboard. We left the marina just after 10 am yesterday—a busy morning getting the final preps done onboard, and we topped up our diesel tanks on the way out. We zig-zagged past some big tankers anchored just outside, waiting for their turn to get into the harbor. The breeze filled in nicely and we had a lovely sail down the Canary coast. Once we cleared land, the pole went up and we have sailed wing on wing all night long, wind between 10-15 knots, with occasional gusts up towards 20.
We all gathered together in the cockpit at 6 pm (at watch change) for dinner and everyone had a big bowl—that’s a good sign on Day 1! Last night we only had one bucket out, but the fishes were disappointed as the bucket was never used.
We are now settled in nicely onboard, but it usually takes a couple of days until everyone has caught up on their sleep and is fully immersed in the watch schedule of being awake a few hours at night and napping during the day.
That’s it for now. If you read the blog, we would love to hear some comments from you who are ashore in the comment section below—our shore team will send them over to us!
From Mia & the FALKEN team
mia@59-north.com
View more passage logs
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.
Dolphins and Bioluminescence
We had a good run with the sails but weather has changed and we are once again chasing the wind. Everyone is getting a chance to practice helming in big swell; starting to get a feel of the wind and water and how it pushes and pulls the hull. A pod of dolphins came to visit at night, splashing in the bioluminescent water, and again in the day, dancing in the bow wake. For now enjoying the calmer sea state and falling asleep to the rumble of the engine and the gentle whooshing of the water on the hull.
Greetings from Lala Lemonshark
The brave crew is toughing it out and staying cheerful despite being tossed around. The engine is off and we are true sailing-main and jib. In the first 12 hours we saw two pods of Orca and four humpback whales, two of which were 20 yards off the starboard beam!