Latitude: 07°47.32S
Longitude: 153°31.27W
Sunday, June 11, 2025 | 15:00 Boat time | 01:00 UTC | 07°47.32S 153°31.27W
The Pacific is, it turns out, rather large. Mind-bogglingly so. Current estimates suggest it’s 79,108 miles across. North to south, about 530,012 miles, which, in a curious turn of coincidence, is the same temperature in the forepeak cabin this morning. Just our little jaunt from Tahiti to Hawaii is the driving distance going from Bangor, Maine to Clearwater, Florida by way of Boise, Idaho. Now, some of you may question these estimates, which is fair, but in our defense, Falken has come down with a case of the 1990s and we can’t Google stuff. Alex has embraced this with enthusiasm and taken to spontaneously emerging from the aft hatch shirtless, with his Andalusian locks billowing in the wind, to make unverifiable proclamations about the spiritual practices of yellow-footed boobies.
So, the Pacific is pretty big, thus you can’t blame her for occasionally misplacing the wind. After dodging squalls yesterday and celebrating Mary’s birthday with cake (thanks, Adam), watching her reel in a tuna, and (also thanks, Adam) getting it filleted and into the freezer, today has been windless and hot. We’ve motored north along course, still in the little latitudes of the south, aching for any breeze to justify shutting down the motor. But, absent the breeze, we did the only sensible thing a bunch of sweaty, unwashed people can do in the middle of a very large body of water: we jumped off the boat.
Istvan and Tara were hanging from the stern line, Stacy was languidly treading water, and Orie was enthusiastically lathering himself while Jim did cannonballs into the ocean. Alex aggressively defended his exceptionally expensive conditioner from the rest of the crew. Amidst this joy was a moment of gratitude; we didn’t get to sail today, but nothing can replace the immense smallness of floating, untethered, in the blue vastness of the Pacific, rising and falling with the swell and watching beams of sunlight venture into the depths of the thousands of feet of water beneath us. Such smallness that makes every other thought still until the only thing your mind can hold is the notion: "I Am Here."
P.S. For those desperate for an update, the heat rash is almost gone thanks to Dr. Bronner’s and his magical miracle soap.
- Jacob Davis | FALKEN Crew
Write your comments below and I’ll forward them to the boat with the daily update :) - Mia (shore support)
FALKENCrew
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Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
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.