thanks mother nature
47 06.2N 125 26.9W
47 06.2N 125 26.9W | 22:45 Local time
OMG! The stars! That’s all… OK, not really—but honestly, it’s magical out here tonight. The girls are steering in 15 knots of wind with full sails on a broad reach underneath a glittering cloak of sparkles, and we all feel the fairy dust effect. It’s dark, but I’m convinced everyone is smiling, pondering, marveling at how extraordinary our universe is. The Milky Way is so defined and hanging so low, the helms are using the edge of it as something to steer towards to stay on course.
As we reflected over Mia’s coconut and ginger curry for dinner, it’s been a dream-field day since the moment we woke up at 6am to lift the hook. The sky was just brightening and we hoisted the main in the lee of the Broken Group, and rose just as we passed the last cluster of rocks. Ahead was thick, thick fog and honestly, if we didn’t have the modern wonders of satellites and space rockets, we might have wondered if we were sailing towards the edge of the world, about to fall off a waterfall.
Around mid-morning, the fog cleared and the North Westerlies gently started to fill in, and by dinner time we turned off the engine and started to sail. It was a wonderful, peaceful, gentle day. Thanks, Mother Nature. You are warming us ladies in softly.
Also, happy birthday to Catherine’s husband! She’s looking up at the glorious night sky, 50 nautical miles from shore, and is thinking about you. She told me you’d enjoy a message from us. If we had a bottle, we’d write it in there and throw it overboard. But hopefully this feels just as magical! Happy, happy birthday.
Enjoy your warm cozy beds, everyone. And we will enjoy our less cozy, less warm, but absolutely breathtakingly beautiful outside world.
- Nikki
NikkiHenderson
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
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.