I left on Sunday evening during free flow (for convenience, it turns out the lock gates were fixed but for some reason I was not on the email list and no one thought to put a note on the Facebook post to say it was fixed) with a promise from the models for a week of good weather and helpful winds, the first prophesy still looks correct but the wind forecast changed for the worst that evening and at the time of writing (Tuesday pm) still looks problematic, more of which later.
A present but cool trip to anchor off Dale for an early start next morning.
Dale anchorage, later in the season there would
be quite a few boats anchored here when the
wind is from the west.
With the highest, and lowest, tides of the year I anchored a bit further out than usual as the forecast, which was wrong again, said the wind would turn easterly but light but enough to swing me into shallower water.I was up and away at 04:15 with no wind and a smooth sea. Butting out against the tide was a bit slow but the tide turns westerly of St Anne's Head well before high water in The Haven.
I over estimated how quickly the west doing tide increases in strength and was half an hour late to my waypoint off of South Bishop but things then speeded up in a big way:
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| Making 5 knots through the water and almost 12 over the ground thanks to the highest tide of the year. |
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| Despite the curved track I did not change course by more than 5 degrees from passing the S Bishop Lt west of St David's Head until north of the Arklow bank a few miles short of Wicklow. |
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| Sunset over Arklow Bank |
Anchoring off Wicklow was risking a disturbed night and a possible early exit as there is no shelter from the easterly wind forecast for the area but the evening download of the main models suggested a wind slightly south of east on this bit of coast so I opted for some needed sleep and was lucky, there was little or no wind and I had a quite night and 6 or 7 hours of rather broken sleep, it being particularly cold and I could not get my feet warm.
Contrary to the forecast yesterday, quite a bit of wind is coming, and on Wednesday or Thursday likely from the NE - realistically I can’t get to Ardglass before it arrives and there are no anchorages I would want to be in with a F6 SE backing NE so if the forecasts are the same in the morning I will sail to Howth just N of Dublin in a promised fresh breeze and stay in the Marina, probably till Friday.
96 GPS miles in 18 hours from Dale. Sunny most of the way, even warm at times with a spot of sun bathing but cold early and late,
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