The Golden Hind sailed on 26 March, forging across the Indian Ocean. She came within sight of the African coast on 21 May and cruised around the Cape of Good Hope in June, searching anxiously for a further source of fresh water. If it had not been for the rain collected in casks set upon the deck the company would have been in difficulties, and when a landfall was made at Sierra Leone the supply was down to less than half a pint to every three persons. Surprisingly, the narratives are silent upon this extraordinary phase of Drake’s voyage, a run of 9,700 miles from Java to Sierra Leone without a base or a reliable map, but experienced seamen marked it as among his finest achievements

John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake, loc. 592