Whales, Radar and gratitude
38 00.01N 122 58.2 W
38 00.01N 122 58.2 W | 07:30 Local time | 24th of August
Land Ho! Well… apparently. We’d planned an arrival like you’ve never seen since the Maiden days—11 ladies in swimsuits adorning the deck and sailing under the bridge. But, alas, someone made pea soup for breakfast, and dinner last night too. So we’ve donned our foul weather gear. Stay tuned for next year… ;)
As the light of our last full day at sea started to dim last night and we gorged on Mia’s delicious daal and naan bread, the fog began to roll in. “It smells more like ‘sea’ out here than normal,” one of the ladies called down below as Mia and I were figuring out the radar. Being such salty seafarers, we popped up with our attuned noses to decipher the smell ;) And it turns out the ladies are much more polite than us—we’d call ‘sea aroma’ ‘super fishy’! And then poof! A spout came up to confirm—not fishy, but Whaley! We don’t know exactly what breed they are because the visibility was low and so was the light, but there were whales everywhere. Big ones—they showed up on the radar… (Joking). They were all around us. Slap slap slapping the water, breathing, showing off their shiny black skin… it was stunning. Porpoises came. Birds too. And then, as the world turned dark grey, the clarity of the top of the mast and anywhere beyond the railings of the boat disappeared. We realized that the last part of our trip we actually saw was a wildlife show. Gratitude was the word.
By 0200 we had dropped our main and were edging into an anchorage. Hannah on the bow, Catherine on one shroud, Kris and Sierra on the other—were shining white lights on the water to keep a lookout for fishing buoys. “Shout loud and we will swerve,” we told them, as they’d only end up seeing them when they came into vision… which was about 2 feet from the boat in all directions. It might have been the eeriest entrance to an anchorage I’ve ever had. As we passed the green buoy, we could hear the sea-lions on the buoy but we couldn’t see the buoy itself. Nikki (there is another Nikki onboard, although yes, I have been known to talk about myself in the 3rd person when really tired) drove in so brilliantly as we found a spot to drop our hook. And then celebration—passage style! We had granola! And a full 4 hours of sleep!
Now—pancakes, and prep before departure. More reflections on the entire trip tomorrow. Thanks for watching, although we couldn’t see you. We are hoping we actually see the bridge as we sail underneath.
Nikki x
NikkiHenderson
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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.