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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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.