Fatal Attraction, Ep. 219

There was no time like the present. Kinsale was to be our jumping off point as we headed offshore for 1300 nautical miles to Madeira, then onward to the Canaries. Situated as it was along the south coast of Ireland and out to sea from England and France, it made for a nice diving board of sorts to sail southbound unobstructed and in the fresh breezes of the Atlantic.

We had engaged with a weather router to help us determine when to leave, and once we were out in the deep blue wonder, determine the best routing to get to our destination. The problem was, Kinsale didn’t want to let us go. One low pressure system after another came marching across the North Atlantic sea. Many of these systems clipped the northern tip of Ireland before proceeding across Scotland and dissipating in Norway. We needed a 2-3 day period of manageable winds – something less than the 25+ knots of winds that these systems churned out. So, we tucked in and kept our minds busy with numerous projects, projects that had not made the ‘A’ list for departure, but now offered us a chance to be further prepared. And, it gave us a chance to get to know Alex better and for her to figure us out. We were really happy to find her. Alex taught sailing at the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club back home in Maine. She also managed their complete waterfront operations. Her goal was to complement her US Coast Guard Captain’s License with additional offshore sea time in order to make a career out of being on the water. We had the offshore miles to give her, and in turn, we were super excited to have another person to stand watch and assist with navigating, sail trimming, and the myriad of other jobs onboard a sailboat at sea. The problem was, we couldn’t get out of Dodge.

Waiting on a weather window with Alex in Kinsale…beer and a fantastic fiddler help make the wait tolerable.
Fresh produce provisioning before our departure
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Next of kin-SAIL, Ep. 218

A light breeze pushed us along at a modest 3-4 knots of speed, a perfect pace to examine the outline of Cape Clear island as it disappeared to our stern. A bright blue day was the canvas upon which we traced our wanderings, a trail of bubbly water. The weather gods were making gestures of peace as the wind built enough for a gracious downwind sail, depositing us at the entrance to Baltimore harbor. Locals here like to remind us transatlantic kin that this was the first, the real Baltimore. Like everything, Americans had super-sized it, but here, an infant coastal town had just enough of the basics to put it on the map. A handful of cafes, pubs, and boutiques occupied the waterfront street while a sailing school with a bee-hive of young teenagers took over a corner of the harbor. I was thrilled to see a bunch of young girls, paired up with their moms, being given a shoreside walkthrough of their trailerable sailboats before they set out into the harbor. It was mother-daughter day on the water! Breezing past us in the direction of the cafe-scene were clutches of slightly older young adults dressed like it was a high-school prom, except this was August.

Missile-shaped monument at the entrance to Baltimore
Baltimore waterfront
Olympic spirit alive and well in Baltimore
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PTSD With An Emerald Glaze, Ep. 217

We awoke in the harbor of Inishmore on the Aran Islands to post-storm clear skies, a fresh breeze, and a full agenda. Our objective was the small fishing harbor of Fenit (fen-ISH), where, if our planning proved accurate, we could finally fill up with diesel and discontinue our miserly motoring tactics. The day looked promising for the 55 miles to go as we followed another sailboat out of the harbor and turned south between Inishmore and its close neighbor – geographically and phonetically – Irishmaan. Immediately, we were in the thick of it. Large swells, the detritus from yesterday’s storm, were being compressed in the narrow gap between the two islands. We have become quite aware of how angry compressed water can get. With still-limited diesel, we set sail and immediately took a close-hauled course through the gap, losing significant momentum each time Sea Rose’s bow came abruptly head to head with the next wave. White water and sea spray painted the cliffs to leeward on Inishmaan, ready to put us away should we lose our focus. I felt like a dental patient waiting with clinched fists, knowing that the pain will stop eventually yet wondering why it’s taking so long. Gradually the roar of the cliffs subsided and we found ourselves in open water with bigger waves but more elbow room to do our work. On flat water, we would have been able to easily make Fenit harbor on a single close-hauled tack but each wave introduced a little movement sideways instead of 100% forward. The technical wizard inside our chart plotter was following all of this activity closely and rather blithely painted a course-over-ground vector that incorporated the net effect of both movements. This vector, swinging in a 20-30 degree arc, had us not quite clearing the major points of land south of us. I tried hand steering to hold us on the razor’s edge of a heading that produced enough wind in our sails to keep us moving forward without luffing. At times we would be doing a respectable 6 knots through the water but then we’d slow to a painstaking 3-4 knots. With the big waves and choppy water, those 2-3 knots of extra speed make all the difference, with Sea Rose holding a steady course and driving through the chop instead of being at the mercy of the seas.

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Pushing Out The Bingo Years, Ep. 216

With such a passion for sailing, I’m not supposed to feel seasick. These are tame waters compared to what we will face in a month when we cross down to the Canaries. But the human body is a complex and confusing piece of machinery; and, as we head out from Port Ellen in the pre-dawn darkness for Ireland, my stomach says it would much rather be laying in bed on terra firma. But forward progress is important. Ireland appears faintly in the distance to port as the sun starts to rise behind us over the Scottish island of Islay where we had, just the day before, bid adieu to our friends Suzy and Dave. Our intention was to sail across the top of Ireland and continue on around the northwest corner before heading down the west coast with an ultimate destination of Kinsale, a total distance of 400 miles. From Port Ellen there are two routes, one west then south – the present course we were on – or south through the Irish Sea past Dublin and then west along the south coast of Ireland, with the unfortunate scenario of beating upwind to get to Kinsale. On the flip side, the west coast is completely exposed to the wrath of the North Atlantic. We would no longer have the benefit of an inner route like we enjoyed along the coast of Norway, nor the route inside the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. But, if we could handle the west coast, there was promise of many interesting headlands along the prominent peninsulas such as the Donegal and Dingle, and many more islands to choose from. So westward ho we went.

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