Leander is at 25 52 N, 21 03 W, on a course of 255 magnetic, motor-sailing at 7.2 knots (we are charging the batteries).

We’ve had a good 24 hours. The winds have settled in to about 17 knots, with gusts, and we are sailing SW on a broad reach. The swell from the distant storm has dissipated, and the single swell is mostly consistent with the wind.

Our sea legs are slowly returning. There is still a good amount of moping about the cockpit, resting, and reading books, but we are also up and about doing boat tasks more frequently. We passed the time this afternoon by practicing tongue-twisters.

“Moses supposes his toeses of roses, but Moses supposes erroneously; because nobody’s toes are poses of roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.”

“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

“Rubber baby buggy bumpers.”

These kept us busy for a while.

All systems are still fine. The engine is running a bit sluggish, but that is perhaps only the need for a new fuel filter. We’ll change that this afternoon and see.

The winds are allowing us to take a relatively direct approach to the Caribbean. We had written before about the “hockey-stick” route that everyone since Columbus has favored. But there is a high sitting mid-Atlantic, and the winds are spinning around it in a giant clockwise loop. We’re riding that big arc on a much straighter route towards the trades, and closer toward the rhumb-line toward the Caribbean, rather than going straight down and taking a right hand turn. At this point, that was the better approach anyway, as there is a great big wind shadow under the Canaries, and under Tenerife and Teide in particular. Going closer south would have left us with not much wind at all.

260 miles done, 2,324 to go.