Storm force

Had to leave off blogging rather abruptly yesterday as the boat we were rafted up against decided to pull out and head for a different harbour with better shelter from the west. The forecast was bad enough to convince the organisers of the Round-Ireland Race to delay the start, with F9-10 expected in the vicinity of the Fastnet Rock. We therefore decided to get off the pontoon ourselves and take the vessel out to one of the mooring buoys in the bay. Good move. The winds in the bay peaked at 50 knots at around 0300 and, though we were tossed about a bit, we had a good and worry-free night's sleep.
We spent the morning and early afternoon doing various little jobs on board before Dermott (the super-friendly Harbour Master) suddenly appeared in a RIB asking if we'd like to be taken ashore for a couple of hours. Good chance to get the latest weather files and plan our strategy for the next few days.
The winds are supposed to go down this evening, so we'll likely pull out later on and make a break for it. Looks like there'll be another Atlantic depression coming through on Thursday so we're planning to get as far as we can by Wednesday evening, before tucking in somewhere to wait out the next spell of weather.
We'll do our best to complete the account of our crossing in good time. It's a bit tricky though, as when we have a few spare moments, we just feel like relaxing a bit. Anyway, managed to download the photos off the camera yesterday and they're looking good so you should all be in the picture soon.