Yesterday was pretty reasonable conditions, with the apparent wind sitting at around 10 to 12 knots all day and never really shifting from 150 degrees apparent. We sat at 4.5 to 5 knots the whole day and were going almost the right way.
The forecast is looking good right through the entire model run on both the GFS and ECMWF.
Today was going to be engine maintenance day, as it's forecast for the wind to die down, and I don't really like going into the engine room at sea. Not just because it's small, cramped and difficult to work in with the boat moving around on waves, but lifting up the hatch to go into the engine room, no matter how hard you try to time it, is going to be the exact moment a wave goes over the back of the boat and straight down the hatch. With the conditions looking relatively calm, it's also a good chance to have a proper look around rather than just dealing with anything that needs attention as it comes up. I'll check the engines, belts, fluids, cooling systems and the various pumps and fittings, as well as generally looking for anything that has worked loose or changed since we left. A few days of sailing also gives you a much better idea of what is normal for the boat and what isn't.
The GRIBs are showing we may get a few days of calm, so it's a good opportunity to check that everything down below is working.
At least it's warmed up a bit, as it was definitely not too tropical a few days ago.
We saw a lot of sea life in the first 36 hours, but that has turned into zero other than the occasional bunch of flying fish. I don't know if we've sailed into a particularly empty bit of ocean or if everything has just decided we're not worth investigating. Even the birds have disappeared, so apparently there is nothing of interest happening out here.