Day 6 of strong/gale/storm force winds down here in Cornwall. Now we have a yellow warning for wind from 18:00 tonight into Tuesday as storm Chloe approaches. Autumn took its time to arrive, but boy has it arrived!
Stepping out of my comfort zone on Wednesday to give an online talk to Cruising Association of Ireland and Junk Rig Association members. No pressure!
Woke at 07:00, as usual. Except the government says it’s 06:00. Cross the Channel to France or Spain and it’ll be 07:00 again. Continue to Portugal and it’ll be back to 06:00. Surely there’s no better example of officialdom interfering with the natural order of things for no good reason.
A quick trip to the marina to check on Sólmara. Roads flooded, still lots of debris about. Horizontal rain and gusty winds blowing across the pontoons. Mooring lines and fenders all good 👍Glad she’s snug in her berth and not out on a mooring.
At the risk of becoming monotonous, here’s another weather update. Although (thankfully) Storm ‘Boleo’ is a long way north of us, we’re still feeling its effects. We have a yellow rain warning in for the day and the inshore waters forecast predicts gale force 8 to severe gale force 9 winds later 🙄
A day without electricity supply. Heating oil doubled in price since last year. Diesel over £2 per litre. Water restrictions in place after the dry summer. Govt advising people to stock up on tinned food and bottled water. I used to think living ashore meant security. Now, I’m not so sure.
Nearly midnight and the power has just come back on after a 19 hour outage. Fingers crossed that food in the freezer has survived. Storm Austen now added to Storm Goretti as memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Still gusting near 70mph as we cop for the backside of storm Austen. Latest estimate for getting our power back is 11:00
Had to brave a quick trip outside to get the camping stove. Fence panel smashed. Plants and pots all over the place. Tree and leaf debris flying about. Estimate for power restoration 09:30. Time to get the kettle on!
06:45 Storm Austen howling in the trees. Rain lashing down. Power has gone out. Waiting for daylight.