How wrong does a forecast have to be before it ceases to be a forecast? well – today’s was on the margin of that … The forecast was for a westerly of around 7-9 knots. The reality was a south westerly of around 18-22 knots – quite a margin of error. With quite a way to go, we started out around 6.50am. For the first two and a half hours or so, we had to motor under a fairly grey, leaden sky. After a while it did even rain for a while, but almost not enough to bother with waterproofs. Eventually though the sun broke through and the wind increased and increased and increased …. until we were hard on the wind in about 20 knots. This created quite a short sharp sea, but we powered through it nicely. We did have to do a couple of tacks. One of them took us past Ales Stenar or Ale’s Stones. This is a megalithic monument of a stone ship thought to date from around 1,500 years ago at the end of the Nordic Iron Age. It is 67 m (220 ft) long formed by 59 large boulders, weighing up to 1.8 tonnes each with the stones at either end significantly larger than the rest.
Once past this headland we had to put one more tack in to clear the shallows of the Ystad breakwaters, before heading round the western side of the breakwaters and directly into the entrance by the marina. With the lively westerly, there was quite a swell coming in, but once round the corner we got some reasonable shelter.
To view our track, follow the link below: