Aleria's Adventures

Fog over Clew Bay as seen from Mulranny.  We had visited Blacksod Bay and Elly Bay by sea before but had never actually gone ashore. Yesterday, we needed to get cow matting from the manufacturer, Cow Comfort, in Belmullet. So we stopped in Ballycroy to see Marie Wood's art exhibition in the Ginger &Wild Cafe, went on to Belmullet picked up the cow mats and then decided to go to the end of the road at Blacksod Bay. It was a beautiful day for a car ride and a gander. On the way there, we saw a most extraordinary sight -- fog or low cloud over a segment of Clew Bay, likely an inversion as the weather had suddenly turned quite warm.  Marie's art exhibition was superb. Her work is always impressive, but this selection I found especially appealing. My favourite piece was called 'Let there be light' but I loved them all. The views from the Cafe and visitor centre were beautiful but we didn't take the time to walk the loop as it was a bit breezy and we wanted to be sure

The remnants of Hurricane Epsilon were stirring up the seas last night. The M6 buoy off the west coast recorded one of the highest waves ever seen anywhere in the world -- 30 metres or 98.4 ft.   The wind has been blowing steadily for hours. Blowing 40 kts gusting 55 kts since 10 am. It's now 5 pm.  As I drove to Alex's mum's house with groceries and meals today, her inlet had white-capped rollers breaking over the road and depositing rocks on it. I was hurrying to get home before the road went under at the high tide. The video is of our inlet. Much more subdued, but no view of Croagh Patrick today. And not raining at the moment. So much flooding everywhere.  It's going to be a long winter.  'The tide is high but I'm holdin' on I'm gonna be your number one...'

The outer marina at A Coruña Where to even begin... We departed A Coruña in light Northwesterly winds, finding that we could easily hold a course not far off our mark of hitting Crookhaven. We figured if we couldn't make landfall there, we could easily make Dingle. We had six days of GRIBs and the forecast was for NW-ly winds in the range of 10-15 knots for the first day, a hole in the middle of Biscay with no wind through which we'd have to motor, and then SW-ly winds of 15-20 kts off the coast of Ireland to bring us home. We had filled the tanks with diesel before departing so we could motor just about all the way if needed. Our last passage was a sleigh ride across the Bay of Biscay with the wind on the beam and Aleria screaming along shredding the 500+ miles in exactly 3 days from Crookhaven to Portosin. That set up expectations, but we knew this one would be a little different. The first night was a nightmare with ship traffic. I crossed the outbound lane counti