L'Eau Commotion Westabout

Day 117 7pm Wednesday 2nd October 2019 ( UTC-1 )
You can sail in a direct line from Hierro to the next turnpoint in a straight Great Circle which would take you to the East of the Cape Verde Islands but this would bring the possibility of getting into the monsoon trough which often occurs between them and the coast of Africa. Accordingly the planned route is to head South West to about the 30th Meridian then head South to try and pick pick the ITCZ at its narrowest point. I did travel South from Hierro but that was an attempt to get out of the lee of the Canaries which in the event proved successful. We had some pleasant hours sailing with the wind on the Starboard quarter and jib poled to Port with the full main well out to Port also but with the expectation of stronger winds tonight a couple of reefs are now in the main. That gave an extremely smooth ride with an almost total absence of pitch and roll and with the Watt & Sea raring to do something useful besides powering this iPad I ran the Katadyn desalinator for seven hours so now all the water tanks are again pressed up.