#2. las palmas to antigua| THE APPRENTICE
January 20, 2025, 20.26 UTC | 20º 41.5’ N / 020º 17.6’W | The Apprentice
Good evening!
We are still heading south to get down to 20º N as I write this. We have light winds of 8-13 knots and the engine is on to help us get away from the high pressure over us. We are doing a consistent 7 knots and since we started this passage in Las Palmas we have done 553 nautical miles. Jillian is at the helm, Kevin, Janette and Paulo are sitting in the cockpit watching the mesmerizing sky of stars and the other watch team (Scott, Sarah, Derek & Brandon) are hopefully able to get some sleep before waking up at 21:45 local boat time to get ready for the watch switch!
The person writing this blog for you is Vilgot, the apprentice on FALKEN and I thought that it would be interesting for you to get to now me, a 19 year old guy from Sweden on his first gap year after high school ending up crossing the Atlantic with 59º North on NORDIC FALKEN.
I met Mia and Andy at a local boat show in Sweden approximately one year after I saw FALKEN in Isafjordur, one of the most northern villages in Island. Seeing FALKEN in Isafjordur was during one of my two passages with the training tall ship T/S GUNILLA, a high school training vessel that takes students around the world while they are studying regular subjects as science or social studies. It was during these two trips that I got totally obsessed with ocean passages. I got introduced to the apprentice program at the boat show that 59º North started a couple of years before and knew that this was something that I had to apply for. After sailing on FALKEN from Ellös to Marstrand I submitted my application and ended up on this Atlantic passage from Las Palmas to Antigua. I could not be more excited and great full to learn from the professional staff working for 59º North and meet all of the amazing crew for this passage, it is truly a dream come true!
Enough about me! The day has been amazing, loads of sun and with a warm day the first shower for the entire crew couldn’t fit any better. Right after the showers the crew gathered in the cockpit for dinner and as usual had our ”Glums and Glow” list for the day. There was almost zero ”Glumps”, at the end of dinner we had our first switch of the local boat time to adapt to the sunrise and sunset as well as the local time in Antigua. So we are now one hour behind the UTC time.
Everyone seems to be settling in good after these few days and I heard that crew had started to read some books at off watch. Seems like a few habits at home are settling in on the boat!
That’s it for today!
Hold Fast!
From Vilgot the Apprentice and the entire crew!
Ps. We read the comments from the blog at dinner and crew loved them, so keep the comments coming and we’ll read them again at dinner time!
