Month: Jul 2013

Left Schull as the rain closed in and the southerly wind built up, aiming for the inside passage to Baltimore, which John said was called the Postman’s Entrance.

There are two ways to reach it, one outside the islands in the bay and the other more tortuous rote on the inside. I miscalculated the speed with which the waves would build in the bay so we ended up slamming through a short choppy sea for an hour until we got back in the lee of Cape Clear, where it settled down, and we looked for the narrow and circuitous route into Baltimore’s big and very sheltered bay. Wish I had taken the rocky inside route.

Picked up a buoy, lunched, moved to the pontoon, ashore for drinks with Johanna and John.

Baltimore harbourmaster found us an overnight mooring – boat was heaving a bit on the pontoon, which has shrunk compared with the one shown in the pilot book. They did not seem to have added the usual summer extension to it.

Passage notes: 10 miles, max wind S 6, min S 4, heavy almost breaking swells when exposed to ocean, calm once on inside passage, visibility less than half a mile, rain. Should have taken the time to plan a passage west of the inner islands, which is much more sheltered, though more complicated.

As we left Dingle, its celebrated Dolphin came out to play, not with us but with some canoeists near the channel out. But we had a good look as Fungie surged past – a Dolphin on the large side, like a small whale, who has been living at Dingle since 1983.

The picture is from the web!

We originally planned to spend some time in the great bays of the south west, but when we looked at the logistics it needed a week to explore them all properly. They are also in relatively easy reach of the English Channel, unlike the far west, so we decided it would be more sensible to skip the Kenmare River and Bantry Bay and think of coming back one day for a separate cruise. So we headed for Schull.

We sailed in sight of the Skelligs, the pinnacles of rock where monks lived as hermits one and a half millennia ago. The Skelligs are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, like Dun Aengus. It is very hard to believe that anyone could live on these steep sided islands, but their chapels and cells are still there, and so are the paths up to them. They are perched at 160metres and the summit is at 230 metres. It is not usually feasible to land from a yacht, but in good weather there are excursions from the mainland, for what sounds like a rather daunting outing.

Here we all are, posing in front of the Skelligs.

Saw the Fastnet Rock in the distance as we approached Schull. Three times I got to the Fastnet and wished I could go into Schull or Baltimore rather than all the way back to Plymouth. By the time we fought up to the rock on the race, we were all beginning to wonder what on earth we were doing out there, cold, wet and exhausted. Of course, it always seemed much better once the parties started in Plymouth, which must be one of the reasons why many people do it again, and sometimes again.

After a fine but sometimes blustery day, the weather closed in and it was cold and wet when we arrived in Schull.

But everything cheered up when Christine,  part owner of Spring Fever, joined us as fourth crew member. She flew to Dublin and came by train to Cork and bus to Skibbereen, where she was picked up by her friend Johanna from Schull and Johanna’s friend John, who turned out to be a sailor of great experience, with a yacht moored at the bottom of his garden. He was preparing for a week of racing on a variety of boats in Schull’s Calves Week, a tongue in cheek references to Cowes Week. Chris visited John’s house on a nearby river on the way, and they were all waiting for us on the quay at Schull as we arrived.

John suggested we go alongside a fishing boat and come ashore for supper in a restaurant, where we had a splendid dinner of mussels followed by lobster with Muscadet to drink. John later pointed out the visitors’ buoys, and when we left our temporary berth alongside the fishing boat we picked one up for the night. But the weather was turning worse, and from the south, and John warned that Schull harbour became very uncomfortable in those conditions, and Baltimore would make a better alternative tomorrow.

Passage notes: log 72 miles, 12 hours, max wind WSW 4, min W 2, rain then bright then rain, swell 2-3 m. Alongside a fishing boat on the pier then to a heavy-duty visitor mooring on east side of harbour.

Chores, various adjustments and repairs, shopping, laundry, fuel – one of those days. Welcomed our third crew member, Jean-Jacques Botteron, who flew from Switzerland to Dublin and got a bus to Tralee and another one to Dingle. Took him to a very superior fish and chip shop, which had fresh mussel chowder as a starter and then lightly battered fish.

Dingle is very pretty, full of tourists, a suprising proportion of them American, probably on the famous Ring of Kerry tour. Looks like a nice place for a family holiday. More than 50 pubs for desperate parents! Lovely warm day.

We decided to leave Inishmore at midnight to make sure of getting through the inside channel at the Blaskett Islands before the tide turned, and also to beat a forecast veer in the wind from south east to south west, which would be almost ahead. It meant running the gauntlet of the lobster pot buoys and ropes, because we could not see them in the swell, even with the bright moonlight. But none of them caught us, though we spent the hours of darkness in fear of the shudder, swish and gurgle that meant we had caught one. The wind was light, so we motorsailed to make sure we did not miss that tide.

We dropped the idea of spending a day or two getting to the Blasketts,and skipped the Shannon and a couple of anchorages south of it, because we had rendezvous with two new crew at different times. With the wind turning against us after today and likely to rise, it becomes much easier to manage the logistics if we first get round to Dingle.

We passed inside the stunning Blasketts at noon, in quiet conditions. Excursion boats from Dingle had landed lots of people on Great Blasket, who we could see exploring the island, now uninhabited except for an artist who lives there part of the year. A former Irish Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, used to have a house on one of the even smaller islands.

Into Dingle, which is am amazingly well hidden harbour with a narrow entrance that broadens out into a wide shallow lagoon that – coming from the west – can only be seen as you are about to enter. There is a narrow dredged channel, which it is important to keep to, because there is very little water outside it.

Moored in our first marina since Port Ellen on Islay, the first time we have had to pay since then. Showers, omelettes, The Killing episode 96 or thereabouts – it is gripping but it does go on a bit.

Passage notes: 83 miles, 15 hours, max wind SW 4, min SSW2, main hazard inshore at night – lobster pots