23:27 UTC
19° 45.899’ N 068° 18.695’W
Sailing
The first 24h of sailing are past us.
We crossed the draw bridge at 4pm yesterday local time, to the cheers of a group of people watching from the sidewalk. I wonder if they knew that we’re about to cross the Atlantic and not just hopping to the next island over.
And then it was straight to sailing. We tacked between St. Martin and St. Barts and have been on that tack ever since, sailing upwind. If we’re to trust the forecast (which we do, there isn’t a lot of variance between the models) conditions will be stable like that for at least the next few days. We might not be able to cross over to the north of the Azores high.
On board all is well, the crew settled in to their watches. A few of us (me included) struggled with sea sickness on the first evening/night, but by now everyone has gotten their sea legs.
Adrienne II is doing well too, cutting through waves cleanly. Unfortunately on leaky hatch in the saloon roof got tested when we took a bigger wave over the bow and it dumped quite a bit of salt water on our cushions, pillows and our dear skipper Erik. That’s going to take some time and effort to dry out.
// Bartek, Adrienne Crew
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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.