Aleria's Adventures

Rain, rain won't go away, raining all day long today.  Post-tropical cyclone Sam has stalled between Ireland and Greenland. Alex, Cormac and Louise are going to get mighty wet heading out to Clare Island tonight. Michael Murphy's son is also joining them. At least it's warm. Supposed to hit 21 degrees at 2 pm.  Alex has been finding false widow spiders everywhere. One was in his wallet in his pocket. One in the mailbox. And now one was spotted under the sprayhood on the boat. How did it get there? Swim? They are apparently almost as venomous as real Black Widows.  PS Murph's son cancelled. And it's still raining. 

  Remnants of extratropical Hurricane Sam have arrived over Ireland causing unusual weather for several days. It started with rain this morning, which by 11:00 am had turned into a sustained downpour. Definitely tropical in nature. Around 1:30, suddenly all the windows in the house fogged up -- from the outside! That meant that tropical air had arrived and it was colder inside than outside. Sure enough, the temps increased significantly and the humidity went through the roof. Tropical Ireland. We'll get lots more rain tomorrow and Friday and they are saying we'll potentially top it off with thunderstorms as the high pressure nudges Sam into Iceland. At least we aren't to get the full punch of a Category 4 storm, which it was as it churned in the Atlantic.  Alex, with crew Cormac and Louise, are to deliver Aleria to Kilrush over the weekend, leaving Friday evening to anchor at Clare Island. Then Saturday motoring to Kilronan and Sunday on to Kilrush, possibly hauling out on

Yannick Lemmonier, sailmaker from Galway, aboard his Mini.  The MiniTransat fleet pulled into Baiona, Spain to avoid heavy weather and orca attacks. The Minis were being thrown around like dinghies by the whales and apparently, the aluminium mini 650 support boat was attacked. They had a nasty go at his rudder.  Several other yachts have been towed to Baiona, a UK vessel to Vigo and a Swiss boat to Cangas. The activity of the whales is very high off Galicia, Spain right now. The current advice is not to transit these waters until later in October.  Many thanks to Rhys Walters for the report and photos. Severe weather warning for fleet Map of latest Orca interactions

20 years have passed but it seems like yesterday. I was working from home in NJ and I saw a message flash across the screen that there was a plane crash in NY. So I turned on the TV. The plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought OMG what a terrible thing - I knew people who worked there. I had been there myself just the week before for a lunch meeting. Then the second plane hit. I called Alex at work and told him to come home -- that we were under attack and had to prepare to escape. I was convinced this was just the beginning. You could see the smoke on the NY skyline from just about everywhere in NJ. I started packing our backpacks and camping gear and devised a plan to walk out of NJ to our boat in Rye and sail off across the ocean. Then the towers collapsed. Soon everything stopped. No planes in the sky, no trains, trucks, buses or cars. Silence. I'd never heard true silence before. People walked across the GW bridge, like zombies covered in white dust. That

Yesterday had to be the greyest day I've ever witnessed. Still and grey. The day before, Thursday the 2nd of September, we decided to sail out to the Inishkeas, but the wind died and we motored the 35 miles out. But not before I had to climb the mast for the first time in years. We had taken the halyards home to wash as they were green after two years in the elements unused. When Alex tried to reinstall the halyard, it got stuck and wouldn't go over the sheave. It was terrifying. At least it worked and I even managed to snap a few photos.  So we took off and headed out past Achill Island and Head to the 'deserted' Inishkeas. The last time we were there was about 5 years ago or longer. We anchored in our usual spot in a slight northerly breeze which was to be easterly and during the night did shift but less than 5 knots, so very settled conditions.  A little sailboat was anchored off the beach and there were people camping in one of the ruins. But lo and behold, two hous

To visit the Skelligs, we had to travel to County Kerry, known as The Kingdom. Ciarraige in Irish translates as Ciar's Kingdom, which has been its name since the 6th century. It's a 5-hour drive and we had to stay overnight as the boats leave from Portmagee early in the morning.  We departed from Mayo mid-morning. We made our usual potty stop in Tuam. We bought sandwiches there to have en route for lunch. We decided to stop and stretch our legs in the pretty village of Adare. The last time we stopped there was about 10 years ago. We took our lunch along to the park and sat watching people and pigeons while munching our way through delicious sandwiches. We haven't people watched in public in several years. We then decided to break up the trip a little more by walking around the town. There were quite a few people around and we even saw a wedding, which has been a rare occurrence through the pandemic years. It was interesting to note that Adare looked very different than we b