an east wind

Thursday morning. Half way through the week, if we're counting it in gigs. By 2200 tomorrow night we should be done, the band's trailer dropped back off in Dad's garage, and us finished in time for the weekend. I have the weekend free.

On which note, the forecast:

Ignoring the gusts on Saturday, and the unusual and unfortunate easterly direction, it almost looks promising. It's a spring tide, and a relatively big one at 14m.

 

So were we to head down to Cardiff on the ebb Saturday morning, that much of a tide running with the wind would dull the gusts a little. And anyway, we'd be sailing with it.

Coming home again on Sunday will be a different matter though. The tide will add 4 or 5 knots of apparent wind onto our nose, and I seem to remember Portishead can be a bit of a cow in a fresh north-easterly, especially with the tide against it on the flood. The sea gets very confused and lumpy and the breakwater gives no shelter when the wind is in that direction.

We're getting around 12 hours of daylight now, but Sunday's high water is 0832, which means that to get back in the light we'd conservatively have to leave Cardiff around 0400, which would mean casting off from Penarth at around 0330 to get through the Barrage in good time. 

So two and a half to three hours of sailing in the dark. With 10 to 20 knots of wind on the nose, and the temperature around 4°C, not accounting for wind chill. Which will be exaggerated by the easterly direction and the need to beat into it.

So I'm not completely sold on the idea, yet. On the other hand, it doesn't look like there's any rain, and it could be a very pretty sunrise. And we haven't managed to get out since October last year. That's far, far too long a time.