The Doldrums

Being at approximately 7 degrees north and 127 degrees west, we are now officially in the doldrums or the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone as NOAA calls this area of rain squalls, variable winds, and lightning:

From the April 2 NOAA forecast:

INTERTROPICAL CONVERGENCE ZONE/MONSOON TROUGH...
ITCZ AXIS EXTENDS FROM 09N121W TO 04N140W. SCATTERED MODERATE
WITHIN 75 NM EITHER SIDE OF AXIS BETWEEN 129W AND 133W.

The GRIB (weather model) file shows a 1012 millibar gradient running north east to south west just below us, with a 1012 high to the southeast and a 1012 low to the northeast of that. Not sure how one can have a high and a low beside each other with the same pressure, but - hey - I'm no meteorologist.

Practically - this means that our 140 mile days are over for a while. The ITCZ should go somewhere else in a couple of days if the GRIB forecast files are correct, but it looks like we are in for a couple of days of frustrating sailing, dodging rain squalls and lightning.