Aleria's Adventures

Cloud bank while we were departing. Alex has finally created scheduling around his mum's care so that we can take two consecutive days off. We looked at the weather forecast and the tides, and they conspired to enable our escape to Clare Island. Just one night. Out in the afternoon on the outgoing high tide. Back in the afternoon on the incoming high tide. We were to have mixed cloud and sun and benign conditions for a whole week.  Wednesday morning I packed and provisioned. Wednesday afternoon, we took off. We had a consistent 15 knots of breeze from the WSW, enabling tacking out to the Clare. We raised the main and mizzen, then Alex unfurled the yankee and sure enough, the sheets were run incorrectly. One of those things you forget from year to year. This time it had been two years since we hanked on and hoisted sails. Same thing with the staysail. So he furled the sail and re-ran all four sheets. Then he unfurled the yankee and it was fine. Then he raised the hanked on staysail....

Leaving Kilrush at 0530h.  We brought Aleria home from Kilrush over the past few days. We drove down Tuesday, hanked on the sails, provisioned, fill the tanks with water and fuel, cleaned up, then had a nice dinner aboard and early to sleep. Left at dawn to catch the tide, rounded Loop Head with the tide pushing us at about 8 knots, then motored in flat calm arriving in Inishbofin 12 hours later, bypassing Inishmore to take advantage of the calm weather as the forecast was dire for the next day.  We had gale force SE winds and torrential rain overnight but were well protected in Bofin Harbour. The next morning, with near gale and torrential rain forecast, we set out in flat calm and sunshine. There were rain showers all around us but we maintained a personal weather bubble. As it turned out, we were motoring along in the eye of the low-pressure system and arrived exactly at the right time to catch the incoming tide at the half. As we secured the boat on the mooring and got al...