2216 UTC | 08° 10.72’ S 107° 23.94’ W
Sailing
FALKEN is officially on the highway to the Marquesas, as Alex calls it, also known as the southeasterly trades. She is cruising along with the swell (finally) on her stern and the sails wing on wing. I wasn’t sure the term ‘highway’ could accurately apply to sailing until about five minutes ago, when Kate surfed down an above average wave and reached 17.6 kts of boatspeed. I can confirm that down here at the nav desk, I certainly believed that I was on a highway to something.
The yankee is rigged to the pole, which means I’ll finally stop tripping over it every time I go to the foredeck. It’s been an eventful past 24 hours to reach this point, and I’ve lost track of how many reefs I’ve put in and shaken out. I’m almost convinced that a few of them were just for Alex’s entertainment. The breeze is ever present but constantly in flux, and in a way, I find it strangely comforting that it will never fully make up its mind.
All is well with the crew—we’re enjoying conversations ranging from European bears (they exist, right?!) to electrolytes to sea stories. Some of us even laugh at Ken’s extraordinarily niche jokes. Flying fish constantly zip just above the surface, raising questions of what could possibly be chasing them down below. We’ve stopped keeping tally, but many have found their unfortunate end after flinging themselves onto FALKEN (or worse, straight into Beven).
As for me? I’ve found myself most in awe at night, when bioluminescence sends glimmers of wave crests across an otherwise dark expanse. I’ve seen more shooting stars than I thought physically possible, and I love how Venus is always the first bright spot to appear in the sky as the sun sets. I’ve been thinking much about how space must not be all that different from the open seas, empty and incomprehensible from afar but alive and intricate once you zoom in. I find myself smiling as I realize it’s no surprise those who explore space were named after sailors.
Love to all,
Zoe Peach-Riley (Apprentice)
View more passage logs
.jpeg)
Taha’a-haha (say that correctly five times fast)
Ten heads bobbing around the stern, cold beers hidden a meter below the waterline, and coconuts dodged through the reef — the crew of NORDIC FALKEN have arrived at Taha'a, and they're wasting no time. First Mate Pheebs reports from a golden-hour anchorage in the Society Islands, where strangers became shipmates somewhere between Papeete and paradise. Manta rays and what might be the world's best coral drift snorkel are on tomorrow's agenda — if Skipper Mary's mushroom risotto doesn't slow anyone down first.
Tahiti-Taha’a and a birthday
Bora Bora who? Leg 6 crew are aboard and setting their sights on the lesser-known gems of French Polynesia — Taha'a and Huahine — where vanilla farms, manta rays, and drift coral snorkels await. The new anchorage booking system is a noble idea in theory, though its website appears to share the reliability of the wind, which has cheerfully decided to blow from exactly the wrong direction. It's upwind sailing, birthday cake, and uncharted territory from here.
”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2
After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.