Wind noise

Returning West yesterday we watched brooding rain clouds cross ahead of us from mainland to Island. Closer, these storms dropped stray rain on us and threw wind eddies and vortexes that tugged our sails and blew white horse foam across the sea's surface. Rain shrouded vessels in the path leaned heavily and the sky slowly darkened as our own shower arrived.

Large drops fell within the storm system; a contrast to the light spitting outside. Staring ahead, upwind, our faces were washed and the shock of cool rain as it entered our ears became common. In still calm seas the wind peaked, probably around 30 knots and then followed the waves, travelling more slowly than the wind. Another mile and peace returned. A washed sunshine began to warm us and with only the outgoing tide to counter, mooring was simple.

We stowed and tied, made fast and made tea. Just as we were ready to go another shower arrived and we closed the hatch, settled to wait it out and snoozed a little. We watched the peregrine put on a little display flight before motoring the tender back to the pontoon. When we made shore, the retreating rain was still on the South Eastern horizon, making a rainbow whose coloured stripes were cut in sections by bands of rain, looking like an ironic manicured eyebrow.

Dry to home, but the sky was becoming confused. Clouds seemed to stand on end. Tiered vistas of dark and light water vapour revealed ragged islands of blue. Some cloud appeared completely inverted, showing the mounds and crevices that are normally seen from the air. Fleeting flashes, seen from an eye's corner soon became to dominate the fading sun's brightness. Thunder rolls that sounded like the sky's fabric tearing lasted up to half a minute each. The core of the storm, a dark glowering mass, loomed from the West. Without atomic thunder events, timing the flashes was difficult and the results were stochastic. A mile, two miles, a mile and a half. A quarter mile! The note of the fridge motor changed, the Internet dropped out. Ten minutes later it was gone, just a deep grumble left to remind us and a clearing sky that, after another twenty minutes, was virtually empty. Pale blue with just a few remnants of cloud, like the trail of a distant steam train, miles gone.