00:56 UTC | 19°39.10’N 109°09.72’W
Sailing
Another perfect sunrise sipping coffee and swapping stories. It turns out that finding cockroaches on your boat is not the worst place to find them. As a young surf shop employee, Robert once found a cockroach duct taped to his back as by one of his coworkers. The most crucial and harrowing aspect of such a horrible prank is he could feel the little bugger squirming around under the tape. Thinking quickly while failing to reach the tape with his hands, Robert jumped to his back to squish the roach and end the horrible prank. Swapping stories is my favorite part of long passages.
The only thing that could top the gut wrenching laughter of the crew while Robert told his tale was after 1 day 23 hours and 5 minutes Christine finally broke Mary down and the kite went up! We were only able to fly it for the afternoon and it was great to see the crew taking turns at the helm whether they were on watch or not.
The yankee is back out and we are ready for a beautiful sunset and perfect sailing through the night.
Cheers,
Jake
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Final Blog
Falken and her crew arrived safely into port last night around 8pm boat time, 10pm Prince Rupert time. Some spicy weather was anticipated, but luckily the 35kt gusts and 2.5 meter waves were no match for this expert crew. We had an exceptionally smooth docking, despite it being Alex's first time parking this year (!). We all agreed that this was a very special group of people—I for one am so impressed with how everyone stayed so positive, helpful, and appreciative of humor despite an arguably challenging passage. We'll all return home significantly saltier than we were when we left, a mark of a passage properly sailed.
Lessons and a Gift
The biggest lesson is the helm. The lesson here is that even if you don't think you can do it over and over again with no sleep, cold and damp, it has to be done and so it can be done. Flying fish are cool, dolphins are really really cool, but the coolest of them all are the whales. And most of all Alex: "Find your center Carla. Always know where your center is so you can come back to it". He means the helm but it applies to life as well.
Making the most of it
This passage has thrown pretty much every atmospheric condition imaginable at us. It reminds us not only of how much we’ve learned, but of how far we’ve literally come since that acceleration zone off the northwest corner of Oahu. The resilience this group has shown has been nothing short of incredible, and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of it. Maybe that’s why it’s the hardest passages we remember the most. Not because they were easy, but because they reminded us what we’re capable of.
