Aleria's Adventures

  Crossing oceans on a small sailboat is not for everyone. As I was home alone and reading about AI, I started wondering what AI would say about the pursuit. Alex was down in Kilrush working on Aleria. Her mast has been pulled and he was removing all the winches. She's having a bit of a refit.  As I was thinking about it, I happened upon a notice that Google AI, formerly called Gemini, is now called DeepMind. I decided to test its intelligence by asking a simple but complex question. This is the response to the question, "Why do people sail across oceans on small boats?" Google AI, formerly Gemini now DeepMind Why do people sail across oceans in small boats? People sail across oceans in small boats for a variety of reasons, often driven by a combination of personal motivations and the allure of the sea. Here are some of the most common factors: • Challenge and Adventure: Ocean sailing, especially in a small boat, presents a significant physical and mental challenge. Sai...

  As Alex is now ICC Rear Commodore for the West, we are closely involved with events and activities organised by ICC throughout the year. He recruited Maeve and Louis Keating to help organise the Christmas lunch. For years it had been held in Kinvarra, Co Galway, but the last time they ran out of space and several people had to be split from the group and seated downstairs. That didn't go down well. Besides we like to mix it up a bit and experience new venues around Ireland. Maeve and Louis Keating were enlisted to help out, as we wanted to move the event further south to capture some of the folks who might have not come north in a while. They booked Gallagher’s Restaurant in Bunratty, Co Clare. It turned out to be a brilliant venue. It's just down the road from Bunratty Castle and the Folk Village, which had a magical holiday vibe. It was packed with Christmas celebration groups and children visiting Santa (there were six of them in the Village).  We had a nook all to oursel...

Approaching Bofin over Connemara This week, the forecast was for a full week of settled weather. There would be little wind, so we knew we'd have to motor a lot. We've had strong southerlies, making it almost impossible to head south along the coast to County Clare. We'd have some swell, but the temps would be in the 50s (10C-13C). We elected to leave on Tuesday. I'd provision on Monday and we'd go aboard in the morning, settle in and leave around noon when we'd be close to half tide rising. Clew Bay was fine. We saw seals in the mussel field. I was able to make lunch in the lee of Clare Island. We'd be able to make it to Inishbofin before dark. We had a 2.5-metre swell, but it wasn't that bad in Middle Ground. Sort of washing machine-like motion. Alex took a Bonine in time. About 4.5 hours later, we had arrived. Day 1 went according to plan.  Our night in Bofin was uneventful, except it took us two attempts to anchor. We did not go ashore. It was mistin...

  We've been trying to get Aleria back to Kilrush for about a month now. Each time we think we've got a weather window, it shuts down. Today we took fuel out to Aleria in preparation, ran the generator for a bit, and surveyed what we have on board. Again, we were going to have a weather window but when you see what's just offshore, you don't dare venture out.  It's hard to imagine what's out there when our weather is stunningly beautiful today. But the system just off the coast is what remains of Hurricane Kirk. It's supposed to miss us and break down but it would not be wise to take any chances that it might still make a wobbly and pick up strength. They've become so unpredictable.  Thinking about all our friends and family living in the west of Florida. Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc last week when it made landfall in the Big Bend and now Hurricane Milton is heading straight for Tampa Bay. The storm surge in the Bay area is expected to be twice what ...

The maritime “SOS” distress signal has become shorthand over the past one hundred years for any type of emergency.  Some think it stands for “save our ship”. Britain’s Attorney General Rufus Isaacs was under the impression that “SOS” stood for “save our souls” during the Titanic inquiry. But that is not the case. After Samuel Morse created the Morse code to transmit messages over large distances using light or electrical impulses, Marconi adopted it to transmit messages via his wireless radio transmitter. It allowed ships to communicate with other ships and land-based stations. British operators had started using CQ as a means to hail all stations “seeking you” and Marconi suggested adopting CQD to hail all stations during distress. But the Americans had started using NC, the Italians used SSSDDD, and the Germans preferred SOS.  At the first International Radiotelegraph Conference in 1906 in Berlin, delegates suggested international standards for ship-to-shore communications, ...

  Alex repainted my little  Alia  which has been serving as the tender that the villagers use to get to their boats on moorings. She's looking quite snazzy with her neon green paint. Alex found her years ago abandoned on one of our islands and in sorry shape. He brought her home and fixed her up. I used to use her to get out to Aleria . She's small enough for me to row comfortably and she had a nice little engine on her that I could start until someone stole it. She's almost ready to go back on duty.