Wildbird

We were exhausting scrabble, so decided to make a dash westwards and spend the night in Adrigole.

Problem is a F5-6 from the west with accompanying waves and a "mad dash" are not compatible!  About 5 hours later we covered the 15 miles and sailed up into Adrigole- or we think it was Adrigole- mist and cloud about 100ft above sea level and nobody else there apart from two sailing school yachts who subsequently disappeared. All misty and damp, and windy and our quest  for a pint in a different place gave way to another night on the boat as we decided to hunker down.

Susie of course took advantage of the 3 knot average boat speed and caught lots of mackerel.   Our enthusiasm for more mackerel was unbounded as Susie's cartoon demonstrates.

Glengarriff.. again

What a change!  We've been sitting in murk and drizzle whilst a couple of weather system have gone through. Now another one. ..so guess what we've been doing?  Festering.  Got up to make cups of tea and then back for a lie in.   Playing with computers/ reading books/newspapers/chatting/planning... etc.  Cleaning, shopping, chatting....a little bit of boat enhancements- sorting out the rigging for the spinnaker pole, adding a new line to Obi Wan so we can talk to him whilst remaining sheltered under the sprayhood, introducing Deaks to The Bowsprit...

Susie has  drawn a new sign for the heads...

Looks like we'll be here till Monday, unless the next weather system tracks further north.

Glengarriff

 

Here's Lawrence Cove - a panorama.. enjoyed by us overnight.

A very slow start- perhaps explained by the late night drinking session with Liam and Leo on their Dehler41!

Somewhat subdued by the bills at the marina and our hangovers , we had a gentle drift down to Glengarrif with a nice following wind. Susie, having been tutored by Liam on the ways to catch fish, indeed managed to catch lots of mackerel, so that's what we are having for supper.  Again, greeted by dolphins as we arrived.

Sitting here amidst the splendour of the hills and trees around Glengarriff. A lovely place, and, so we were told by Liam, the birthplace of the Irish Cruising Club. The hundreds of page-long ICC history is sitting on my bunk as I write this - thrust into my hands by Liam, last night. Much reading about cruising exploits to fuel the enthusiasm for the great trip next year (not that I need my enthusiasm bolstered much more).

To Bantry Bay

We're moored up on a pontoon, surrounded by glorious scenery in a tiny marina (Lawrence Cove) in Bantry Bay. The sun is shining, Deaks is cooking something lovely with steak, Susie and I are reclining comatose with glasses of wine, Basil Fawlty  is looking askance at the cooking in case he loses a leaf or two, and Wild Bird is looking like a Chinese laundry (yes, finally we have found laundry facilities!).

Its gloriously sunny.. a great sail here from Schull where we were last night.  Motoring with little wind for the first part, but then turning round Mizzen head, the wind got up to a pleasant 15 knots, the sea state was kind, the sun came out and Wild Bird was just winging her way smoothly through the water. Fantastic! A brief visit by dolphins, and sun enough for shorts (honest)...  what more could anyone ask for....  The scenery is stupendous... mountains running down to the sea... distant clear prospects- Glengarriff and Bantry were shrouded in dark and dramatic clouds, whilst we were in sunshine.

Just to prove that the sun occasionally shines on ireland.....

Schull

A pleasant if brief sail to schull. The first part was a fun bit of pilotage up through the sound north of Baltimore bay and west wards. Then a slow dally in turquoise water whilst we tried to catch fish - no luck, other than a small thin green thing which we couldn't identify and took pity on and threw back.. Our luck was better with the sun- after early greyness, the sun came out just as we turned to sail up to Schull on a broad reach. A very pleasant if short sail.

We picked up a mooring in Schull, and ventured into the town after much shenanigans with the Dinghy, resulting in very wet bottoms. I will throw a veil over the details.

Susie and I did some market research in the arts & crafts galleries (that's our excuse) before joining Deaks for a Guinness or two. Our resolve to eat all the food on the boat weakened at this point and we succumbed to fish and chips on the harbour. Why is it that the two people we chatted to were German (worked on a local farm) and French (ran the chip shop)? Lots of money it seems in Schull- expensive shops and even m ore expensive e food.

Bocelli & dolphins

Set the alarms for an 8.00am start, and just cooking the toast at 7.00am when... "knock, knock"  Huh???    Our inside neighbours now want to leave a 7.23 precisely to catch the tide. Even more "huh?"  - they are sailing non stop to La Coruna in Northern Spain- so exactly which tide is so critical to leave at 7.23am?  Ours not to reason why.! Toast left under the grill, we hastily sort out lines and blearily  cast off. 

Out of the harbour- yes at 7.23 precisely, followed by Red Panda en route to Scilly, and the HR40 en route to Spain.  It is a glorious morning of blue skies and sunshine, 15-20 knots of wind- which although from the W/NW still makes for a pleasant sail down towards Baltimore.

One of those lovely moments-  nice breezes, sun into the cockpit, and Andrea Bocelli on the stereo - and up swims a pod of dolphins who proceed to give us a great display of synchronised swimming and leaping. Clearly they appreciate Bocelli!

As the days wears on, the wind shifts more relentlessly west and builds to 25-30 knots. Eventually we give up this sailing lark and switch on Mary.. still only making 3 knots over the ground with engine assistance against the wind, waves and now an adverse tide.    Baltimore is reached about 2-3 hours later than planned!  And why do Reeds tidal streams for SW Ireland not match the Irish Cruising club's sailing directions?  Hmmmm.

Last trial of the day- we pick up and mooring and go to switch off the engine- the stop button doesn't work.  Hmmmm. Nigel Calder hastily consulted- Deaks yet again to the rescue.. find the fuel shut off solenoid and how to shut down a diesel engine. Another bit of learning! 

A quiet night on the mooring- Susie's excellent spag bol and a couple of glasses of wine lures us all into sleep and an early night rather than exploring the delights of Baltimore.

Secret guest

Ahhah.. another crew m ember who has so far remained incognito- but we have captured him on film now.

Introducing Basil Fawlty.....

Boat mending.....

Yes.. the Irish music and Guinness went down well. Especially as we met Finn the bodrhun  player  who played a mean tune and also knew a friend of Deaks, a musician who was last heard of in Ireland- and had it transpired often been in Kinsale, staying with Finn. Seems that he might now be in  Dingle- so guess where we are aiming for!   

After several pints of Guinness and Susie  delighting in the "Tay-toe" crisps we retired to the boat.  About 3.30 in the morning I wake to hear the sound of the water pump working frantically. Hmmm .  Usually means that we have run out of water in one tank and its trying to fill the accumulator and calorifier, but no water left. But we've only been out for a few days.   Get up and switch off the pump, resolving to sort it out in the morning.  And then lie awake wondering who on earth had used up all the water..... has Susie been having midnight shower indulgences?  Has Deaks been washing his  smalls.. . or other parts....?

Morning dawns...  finally get up and open up the  bunk seat to see the bilge full of water.   Switch the tanks over to a new tank, and switch on the pump.. oops.... hot water pours out into the bilge....  damnation!   

Dismantle boat....  find exploded pipe.... 

Discuss where to find new pipe and connectors with Irish guys in the marina-"oh 15 minutes up the road"....obviously an Irish 15 minutes.  Deaks and I walk up a very long hill for what seems like hours to find a hardware store ... well, it's  a long story involving men, hardware stores, a chestnut horse which we nearly kidnapped to take us back to the marina, boat builders.....  but we get back with  a plethora of bits in the hope one will connect properly. 

Yes....  finally we restore the hot water system to working order and Susie and I volunteer to have long hot showers to test the system. 

The crews of the HR 40 crew (brand new,  and en route from Sweden to Spain and points beyond on their great escape)  and the Najad 391 (en route to Scilly having given up on Ireland, but planning a great escape too) decide they are leaving at 8.00am.

So...  so are we, as we're on the outside.

Fireworks, shooting stars and sea-sickness.

A first blog from The Irish Trip. Yes, we've arrived in Ireland!  In Kinsale, to be precise- rafted up to ride out the next weather system before heading westwards.

Interesting crossing. First of all a delay because of high winds on Wednesday - but this gave us a benefit of a  gentle day sorting out the boat and doing the shopping. Though quite what Deaks and Susie did in Tescos for three hours I don't know.    A prelude to Susie and Deaks having geeky discussions on setting up digital SLR cameras in order to film fireworks- yes, an added benefit of staying on  Wednesday was seeing the final of the British fireworks championships. Quite spectacular-seeing the fireworks throguh boat masts too.

The original plan was to sail down to Scilly overnight, arriving on Friday morning, staying overnight and then off to Ireland.  So off we set- of course wind from the west so some long tacks to get to the Lizard, almost visiting Fowey on the way.  As we neared the Lizard the wind dropped right off, and Obi Wan gave up steering, so we had to resort to Roger (the autopilot) and Mary ("Poppins" the nanni engine)....  a "quiet" night- NOT (at least in the aft cabin) - Roger's moans and groans are very interesting. However, more than compensated for by lying on deck looking up at the stars in a perfectly clear sky - just lovely- made more special by lots of shooting stars.

Bolstered by the relatively benign weather we checked the forecast yet again and realised the horrid weather system due on Monday was accelerating and now due on Sunday. If we stayed overnight in Scilly  we would end up  being there for three days, and potentially in a bad storm.  Ugrib showed a smaller weather system passing through on Friday night - 25-30 knot winds at most and lasting for  just a few hours and from the South- a nice beam or broad reach for us. Otherwise 15-20knot winds.   So we made the decision, as we rounded Lands End in almost flat calm,  to continue on straight to Ireland.

OOpss...  about 30 miles out towards Ireland.. and about 11.30 in the morning, the winds started to build up to 30-35knots.    Not what ugrib files showed at all.  And they continued for the next 22hours, building to 35-40 knots for most of the passage, with spells of well over 40 knots and gusts up to 50 knots.  Mainly from the south, so exhilarating sailing on a broad reach- other than a nasty spell in the middle where the wind veering round to the west and we bounced around with wind on the nose for a while.

I am pleased to report that Wild Bird coped fine..  at times running just under genoa, or even staysail, and surfing along at around 8 knots.   I can't say the same for the crew!    We were all a little green in the gills and resorted to interesting tactics to stay compos mentis enough to take our watches.

Deaks decided that it would be better to sleep on the floor.... unfortunately making this decision about 20 minutes before I decided to cook supper using "emergency rations"   ( ie pre- prepared tins)  which of course were in the underfloor lockers.   Gynaecological  manoeuvres between Deaks' legs ensued.    Susie promises a suitable cartoon in due course.

Susie decided that she had to adopt psychological tactics-she became one of the main characters filming "The perfect storm"... There we were, on deck, in the dark, with people aiming wind generators and throwing buckets of water at her. Soon, someone would shout "cut" and it would all be over.  Her other tactic was to regularly change her knickers  (????  Don't ask) though on her last change she decided that the effort of putting the new ones one was just too much. So commando sailing became the order of the day!

When  not focussing on the loo bowl, I mainly focussed on seeing how Wild Bird dealt with the weather. She was just cruising through it, hardly ever dipping her rail in the water, and cutting through some of the waves. Only splashes from the occasional wave wet the cockpit - very dry overall (apart from the rain, of course!).  My only moment of real concern was the thunderstorm off Kinsale- about an hour out, we found ourselves in the midst of a big sto rm, and once again I found myself contemplating how to deal with a lightning strike.  Not to mention how better to prepare for long passages (not least checking the route in detail- not just the beginning and the end: finding two oil platforms directly en route in the middle of the Celtic sea was a bit of a surprise!)

Dawn saw us just off the head of Kinsale with the storm over and accompanied by a dolphin. Soft mist lingered over the headlands-  and the wind dropped to a benign level.   A lovely arrival in Kinsale.

(postcript.. and a lovely evening of calm and clear skies and a lunar eclipse....

Susie does the heads

Whey hey.. I can officially pronounce that Susie is the "heads" queen, having dismantled and serviced her first Jabsco loo and got it working again....

Meanwhile I mended the kicker  and dismantled and obtained the spare part for the backstay block; and, on a not so positive note, said some some strong words to the contractor who partly, but not wholly, serviced and mended the generator. I couldn't believe his " taking the piss" bill- some of which was for time spent whilst he learned  how my generator worked, and some of which is in my view a gross overcharge for the work done.   A lesson learned for me- ask around before using a contractor.  A lesson for him, which I'm sure he won't learn - by charging me an OTT amount he has just lost the opportunity to do work on Wild Bird over the winter, and I'll make sure that my views on his charging policy and general eptitude (or ineptitude?) for the work are made known to anyone who asks at the marina and elsewhere.

I get back from the boat to find a bill from the second contractor who finally sorted out the generator problem- this one I'll name -  M&G marine services. I opened it with trepidation, to find it wholly reasonable and fair.  Well done Gary and Mick! Guess who will be getting my business over the winter....

Ans now I'm here in Par with the final- yeh ha! - load of stuff ready to be unpacked.

And I'm sitting looking at the rotton weather forecast for Wednesday and browsing YBW, where this quote from Sterling Hayden was posted- something  I've read before, but  seems appropriate as a reminder of what this is all leading to.

The Wanderer - Sterling Hayden on Life

"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?