Through the North Sea
55º 57’ N / 002º 45’ E
Monday, July 22, 2024, 08:15 Local Time | Day 2 At Sea
55º 57’ N / 002º 45’ E
What a difference 24 hours can make. The first 24 hours were pretty busy to say the least, but yesterday the wind eased off and by midday we were sailing downwind with the preventer rigged on the main. One by one, the crew started to get color back in their faces.
We are running a rolling watch round the clock. Crew are in pairs of two, and there are always four crew on deck—two pairs—while two pairs are sleeping. Every two hours, a new pair comes up: four hours on, four hours off.
Yesterday afternoon, Nikki made an amazing dal (curry) and we had everyone up on deck for the first time since we left Bergen. Having a hot meal by the end of the day really lifts morale, and even if people didn’t think they were hungry, they went for seconds! Tonight on the menu is a ginger curry—fingers crossed the galley is not going to heel too much.
We have had very little wildlife, or maybe we have been too busy sailing the boat and swapping buckets to look for any. A couple of birds are circling the boat, but that’s pretty much it. Last night, we were dodging oil rigs and at one point we had 11 of them in sight. We got called up on the radio by a gentleman telling us to keep 2 nm clear of any rig. The depth at the moment is only 86 meters!
All good onboard. Anne is at the helm, with Rachel and Jamie up on deck. Katie is washing up the mugs from this morning while the rest of the crew is off watch and sleeping in their bunks.
That’s it from us on FALKEN!
— Mia
mia@59-north.com
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Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.