Aleria's Adventures

The last few weeks were extraordinary for storms around the world. It's a strange conundrum that although weather forecasting is getting better, the weather overall is getting worse - more extreme and less stable.

Sailing around the cliffs of Achill Remote and Wild  by Daria Blackwell s/v  Aleria Co-author of  Happy Hooking The Art of Anchoring . We emerged from the shelter of the inner islands only to find a furious chop in the bay. It was supposed to be fairly benign conditions today, but the wind was howling in from the West whipping up the seas against the outgoing tide.  There was a huge swell coming in from the Atlantic, which we had expected behind the retreating gale from the day before, but we had not expected this maelstrom given the  Met Eireann  forecast early this morning. But that's the west coast of Ireland. Unpredictable. Majestic. And many days formidable.

The cyclonic system affecting our weather today. Weather, the ever challenging concern for the blue water sailor Our sailing club cancelled racing for today several days ago when it became clear that we would be experiencing gale force conditions with periods of storm force winds from the wee hours of Sunday into the late hours of Monday.  Right now, we have driving rain and we've already had 23 mm of it.  There are sunny spells in between but the wind is relentless. I worry about Aleria out on her mooring. But she's been through worse out there on her own. The cyclonic system causing our weather is actually passing over Iceland so we are getting the southern portion of its rotation. We had westerlies yesterday and are now into southwesterlies so a big chunk has already passed by. No sailing this weekend.