Easterly winds.

Back home from a lively old sail around Bute this weekend.  Some of my more observant readers noted that I wasn't going to be heading off in an Easterly wind again, due to the horror story that we had the other weekend, unfortunately with our recent weather I would have been tied up in Largs for the last two weeks.   So we blasted off, helped along by a stiff NE'ly, and made a handsome 7 knots up the west side of the island sheltered from the seas but not the winds with only a wee scrap of genoa unrolled.  We thought about taking up a mooring off the Kames Hotel but the winds were whipping up quite a bit of a sea over there by the time they had blown across the width of the Kyle, so we anchored off Bute in the wee bay opposite.  Despite there being a big lump of rock in the way the winds weren't prevented from squalling across from the shore and we had a bumpy old night with 40m of chain out.  At about 1:30 in the morning I had to make a few adjustments but we held and in the morning it was clear why when the anchor came up with a large lump of Argyll and Bute clay attached.  Today provided a fantastic sail back down the East Kyle and across to Largs, might need air conditioning if this keeps up though.
Yes, I might go out in an Easterly but can't say it makes for an easy sailing life.