​It’s the weekend! Back home a Saturday looks like the girls gearing up for soccer, Tara and I tackling laundry, yard work, a walk to Starbucks, and a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond, if there’s time. When the chores are complete, we feel deserving of a happy hour with friends, or a date night. There might be time to play guitar, poorly I might add, or just relax on the couch to the latest PGA tour event. And that makes me happy. For a time…before I dream of being on the water.

So, here I am. On the water…dreaming about doing laundry. But really, what does an Atlantic Saturday present that a Tuesday doesn’t? There are rumors that we will be washing ourselves, or one another, at some point today. Perhaps we will do laundry. My shorts could stand watch on their own at this point - the salt, the sweat, the sunscreen. I’m surprised no complaints have been voiced about the general BO looming about the cabin. Thank Orion I’m a mouth breather.

I realize I bored us all to the grave with yesterday’s celestial commentary. Not my best journal work, but I have to share a few observations from last night’s sail. The midnight to 4am watch is by far my favorite. I wore shorts for the first time, and despite Staton’s yearning glances at my calves, I was very comfortable. The moon is almost halfway to its fullness, and painted an iridescent path for us to follow. I discovered the Scorpio constellation off our stern, as did Falken, for she increased her speed through the water to avoid a painful sting.

We are still reaching to the south to avoid a high pressure (low wind) system off our starboard. In the next day we will be swinging slightly to the north and heading straight west on a “great circle” to reach Antigua. Estimates now seem more accurate around arriving somewhere between the 9th and 11th. We are marking the chart at noon and midnight, daily, and it’s rewarding to watch our pencil marks inch closer to our destination. 5 days in, and we have only moved a handful of inches - which reminds us of the enormity of the earth, or the poor record keeping of the crew. Likely a combination of both.

I’m in the cockpit, on the low side, baking in the morning sun. I should be more concerned about skin cancer, but am distracted by Alejandro’s erratic driving. He chastised Chris yesterday for profiling him, but he’s not helping the Latin American stereotypes about being dangerous behind the wheel. I suggested he learn an instrument in retirement rather than leaning into his aspirational sailing career. He replied with the one thing out of his mouth I never struggle to understand - the middle finger.

And so it goes. A Saturday where, absent household chores, a soccer match, or cocktails, we are entertained by our brotherly love, off-colored jokes, and please God, helming lessons for the Costa Rican.

It’s 7:23am, UTC, Thursday. Apologies for the gap in the calendar, but really, you have nothing better to do than read yesterday’s unpublished news? I’ve been in contact with a close buddy from home, and was notified at my waking hour that the Kraken beat the Avalanche and are up in the series 3-2. I promised him I would be on the lookout for the sea monster turned-pro-hockey mascot, and offer them something of value to throw the series. Should that fail, I’ll fashion a harpoon out of TSA-approved belongings and take matters into my own hands.

Meanwhile, back on Falken, we are almost three days out to sea. The beloved Beatlejuice departed yesterday afternoon to very little fan fair. As much fun as it was to have a bird-flu carrying stowaway, we had not accounted for the fecal irresponsibility of a pigeon. After his leave, our watch was charged with a full deck scrubbing. Thankfully, I was at the helm, and watched with mild amusement as my mates scrubbed the green residue from the cockpit. And this, Nora, is why we won’t buy you a Chinchilla.

Yesterday’s excitement was found in flying a Spinnaker. For those unfamiliar with sailing terminology, this is the very colorful parachute-like sail that is so iconic in sailing photography. Its purpose is to lend power when running so you can sail nearly dead downwind. The problems with the rig are everywhere - more lines to assemble, halyards to raise, tacks to tack, clews to clew, etc etc. In my amateur opinion, it’s not worth the trouble. If we wanted to get there faster, we would walk, obviously.

As a relevant aside, my sailing career began with running the spinnaker on the foredeck during boat races in Chicago. And though it served as the catalyst into this life eventually, I despised every moment. I was 23 and had discovered that living in a big city, with no homework, plenty of spending money, and zero responsibility leant itself to some late, late Saturday nights. Sunday morning sailing on a boat with complete strangers, an inpatient captain who showed no qualms about screaming at his crew, and a roll I couldn’t quite understand was not for me. I recall getting a strong talking to, via email, about my lack of commitment to the team. I never responded, nor returned to racing.

“Take these Spinnaker sheets to the foredeck and tie a bowline around the stanchions,” Chris explained to me.

“Yes captain,” I replied confidently with utter confusion.

15 minutes later.

“What have you attached the lines to?” Chris’ tone like mine when asking my children if they know where the laundry hamper is, while trying to find a sign of carpet below their pile of discarded clothes.

“To, err, the pulpit.” I replied, innocently, batting my eyelashes.

And so it went.

As the day progressed, and I witnessed the utility of the damn thing, I was forced to reconsider my position. Thank you smirking German. Thank you.

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​Before leaving Las Palmas, the crew was all handed small slips of paper to record our expected date of arrival in Antigua. There was discussion of a winner’s pot, but until reaching international waters, the legalities and tax status of gambling onboard had not yet been ironed out. It’s unclear what currency we would exchange - Swedish kroner? Deutschmark? Euro? I’m angling for free Dark N Stormies, but my standing as financier may be challenged if I take too strong a position. The point here is how long we anticipate the passage taking. My vote, between us girls, was May 9th, at 9:30am. That puts us on a 15 day passage. We’re all on high alert for the sinister helmsman pumping the breaks, or making lazy arcs through the sea to arrive at their wagered time.

“Are you heading for the kingdom of Banine (Africa),” Chris asked Alejandro.

“No, I was just trying to, err, catch the wind at a better angle." We all know you’re retired Alejandro, but there are more honest ways to earn a Euro.

We’ll have a couple weeks to cover much, so in an effort to educate the reader on the daily goings on at sea, I’ll try to tackle elements of living aboard in a systematic, yet digestible manner. In short, I won’t bore you with too much mundane shit by feeding it to you in small rations daily.

Today I thought to address the important topic of personal hygiene. We were instructed at the outset that brushing of the teeth was reserved for one of the two heads. Anyone caught spitting in the galley sink would be stripped of all rights, lashed to the mast, and offered as sacrifice to the Kraken. Showers will only be taken on the stern of the boat, at an unspecified date in the future. We’ll be handed a necklace of soap at that time, and made to watch one another perform this illicit task in a public setting.

There is hand soap in the two heads and the galley, where one is expected to wash, certainly before digging through the cheese container by hand. Jeff earned a strong dressing down for attempting to clip his toenails in the cockpit, to all of our amusement. Nothing goes down the toilet that did not first get ingested, so the small wastebaskets in the head collect soiled toilet paper, thrown overboard by the captain daily. Not surprising that the dolphins disappear at regular intervals.

My face routine, and teeth-retainer schedule are in utter disarray. I brush in the middle of the day, after breakfast. Or following lunch, at midnight. How can any sort of routine established on land translate onto a boat on the ocean? At sea, what is morning? Or who is evening, when time is marked by an ever-shifting watch schedule as un-routine as the waves below us? I now brush when I want, splash my face with water, and for the love of Poseidon, clip my nails over the guardrails.

It’s dark, but I can see the smirk and slight eye roll from Chris, as he looks at me from the helm. We’re at the stern of the boat, he on the wheel, me at the main sheet, as we wait patiently for Alejandro to finish tying a bowline around a preventer line. The inside joke, of course, is that we practiced that knot before leaving shore. In Alejandro’s defense, a bowline done in English, must appear different to a LatinX.

If the gap in the journal, or the complicated sailing jargon doesn’t signify, we are at sea. I’m sitting in the cockpit at 9:30, drinking my first black coffee of the day, the less refined and rowdy 2nd cousin of the Cappuccino. We slipped our lines yesterday a little past 4pm in the afternoon, local. For those of us with Garmin watches, there was a quick download of a new application, so we can tell time in UTC (the Woke time zone - Universal Time Coordinate - historically known as Greenwich Mean Time) along with whatever local time we will find ourselves.

The planned departure was 12:30, which, under the command of a German skipper, you would expect to, well, set your watch by it. But there was a missing wing nut or something of perilous consequence if not fixed, and that delayed us a couple hours. Passport control was another slight delay. Finally, as we prepared to slip the line, our commander inquired into the VHF:

“Harbor control, harbor control, this is Nordic Falcon requesting departure from the marina and out of the harbor”.

Nothing. Wait a minute.

Repeat. Nothing. German eye roll. Wait a minute.

Repeat. Nothing. Wait a minute. Shoulder shrug.

“Prepare the mooring lines…”. And we were off. I appreciate Chris’ sense of abandonment - I am beginning to understand why he no longer lives in the Deutschland. He’s certainly an outlier.

Once in the main harbor, and before passing the breakwater, we began to raise the main, with Staton and I at the mast, yanking and pulling and sweating, and hand-chaffing, and more pulling…

“Halt. The halyard is twisted. Lower the main.” Chris shared with indifference.

My turn to roll eyes.

“Does someone have their knife on them?” Chris inquired.

“I do. What can I do?” (whatever it is), I replied with excitement.

As we motored around, dodging 400 foot-long tankers entering the harbor, the boat rolling under foot, I climbed 5 feet up the mast, bear hugged the aluminum structure like a Koala might grip a stripper pole, and dangled there, knife in my mouth like a pirate, untwisting and twisting, cutting and zip tying. Not 30 minutes into our transAtlantic crossing, and my life is hanging in the balance, the crew silent with breathless anxiety, hungry sharks circling below…Ok, so the imagination can sometimes run afoul. It was a little scary, slightly dangerous, but unlikely to be the largest or most terrifying challenge of the passage.

Main hoisted, wing nut restored, tanker avoided, and Yankee (jib sail) raised, and we were under way. The sparkling blue water, reflecting the sinking sun stretched out before us, welcoming us into her bosom.

A couple hours later, I found a spot on the stern to enjoy Mia’s first dinner on passage, leaning against the rail, looking back as the sun sank over the silhouette of Las Palmas. The stress, anxiety, excitement, or general endorphins caused by the last couple days and the several months prior, in preparation, melted away. As dolphins emerged from the water, leaping about our stern and darting under our hull, I smiled at our good fortune. And appreciated the good sign from Neptune.

As I was sitting at my journal in the cockpit this morning, I was curious to learn more from our captain.

“What is the name of your son, Chris?” I asked.

“Alexander.”

“What do you call him?”

“Alexander.”

Pause. Smirk. Staton explodes with laughter. Forget Neptune, the dry humor alone is a good sign for a pleasant, if awkward passage. Oh, and the dolphins just returned.

A following sea,
As we sail over the edge,
Sun behind our wake.