27°28.15' N 016°20.12' W
October 18, 2025 | 22:30 UTC | 27°28.15' N 016°20.12' W
The beginning of the end
I listen to the ship’s bell. Tick tock. Tick tock. I’ve never quite understood the landlubbers’ obsession with clocks — seconds, hours, days. For me, it’s the wind that keeps the time, the waves that hold the rhythm of life.
Here, once again on the northern latitudes, I can feel the chill creeping through my rigging — a familiar whisper at my masthead. I know this air; we’re nearing my second home — Gran Canaria.
My crew confirms it. Someone speaks of flight times, another of hotel bookings. There’s something special about the end of a voyage. Even though I find my crew’s ways curious, I know I’ll miss them — their laughter at dinner, the endless conversations under the stars, and their hands and feet pressing gently against my aft deck during those quiet morning yoga rituals.
Soon I’ll be still again, tied to a dock. The crew will leave me, and silence will settle in. On land, all I’ll have left are memories — and they awaken most vividly beneath the stars, when the moonlight slides across my hull.
This crossing has given me many new memories, and from what I can tell, the crew has also shared something truly special. The waves seem to have calmed their souls, and once again the ocean has left its mark upon them. I hope their memories will be as strong as mine.
And when they return to the ticking of everyday clocks, I believe they’ll remember the calm of the waves, the glow of the stars — and that I’ll still be here, waiting, ready for the next adventure under sail.
Until the next adventure…
Tim | Adrienne II Mate
crew@59-north.com
View more passage logs
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.