Aleria's Adventures

Mackeral sky and mares tails, soon will be time to shorten sails. Making our way home to Clew Bay, bypassing the Inishkeas The wind was < 2 knots on the nose, so motor boat we were once again. We left Broad Haven early, shortly after sunrise, as it would be a long day rounding Erris Head and Achill Head and high tide was mid-afternoon. We have a 15-foot tidal variation and need a minimum of half tide to get across a shellfish bed to our mooring. The weather turned miserable. Welcome home! We made it to the Inishkeas around 1130 and poked our nose into the anchorage. The Inishkeas are relatively flat and said to be much like the Outer Hebrides, which we had not made it to in Scotland. There is a wide expanse of sandy beach, abandoned houses, some being restored as summer holiday cottages, and lots of ruins. Another of St. Columba’s monastic settlements – the guy was like George Washington, he slept around – and the remains of a whaling station.  We toyed with a...

Flying across Donegal Bay toward Mayo and home Flying Across Donegal Bay to Broad Haven Bay We got up early to make the long trek back home.  Some time during the night, the wind had shifted and we now had quite a swell coming into the harbour.  It made getting out of bed pretty easy. Bashing doesn't seem to bother Alex Alex was thinking we could make it all the way home to Clew Bay, but I wasn’t convinced. The sea was much more settled but still messy. And the wind, which was supposed to go west, went southwest. We managed to sail in glorious 15-knot breeze and mostly sunny conditions, with passing showers, all the way across Donegal Bay. It’s the most amazing feeling when you shut off the engine and the wind takes over in silence. Ahhhhh. Our original destination was all the way to Clew Bay or a stop in Portnafrankagh, but the latter would have been untenable in a westerly. As the wind shifted, veering southerly, we knew we couldn’t make it home,...