Leander is at 26 57 N, 18 52 W, at a course of 246 magnetic. Our first 24 hours have been good. Not surprisingly, our sea legs aren’t great, after four months without seeing much blue water sailing. The challenge for this first day was to navigate among the Canary Islands. As you pass between them, the wind accelerates, and behind them, it dies. So this meant five hours of sailing with the wind racing through the sails, followed by five hours of calm, followed by six hours of stiff winds, etc.

The difficulty with the calms was that, although the winds died, the seas did not, and so Leander rolled a lot. There is a general wash, plus a pretty big swell left over from an Atlantic gail. The night was rough, as it was difficult to find a good place to wedge yourself into when on watch such that you weren’t flung about.

Today is sunny, with a steady 17 knots. The batteries, engine, sails, and autopilot are all performing wonderfully. We should be able to continue on this course for a couple of days.

124 miles done, 2,448 to go.

Paul, Sima, Alexander and Aylin