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
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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.