Scilly Cruising

Take it as it sounds.

We had an uneventful 24 hour crossing from Ireland to the Scillies, helped greatly by Tim taking a share of the watches.  We had some fog, which is disconcerting, particularly at night (ships you can't see are much more worrying than ships you can), motored some of the time, and arrived in Tresco surprisingly fresh.

Tresco is a small island designed to look like an ideal seaside village.  The result seemed to us to be a bit unnatural and twee.  There are quite a lot of holidaymakers, trippers and yachtspeople and few residents.  The gardens however are superb, making the most of the island's frost-free climate. And even ordinary roadside walls can be spectacular.

St Mary's is even busier and less characterful but the two smaller islands we visited, St Martins and St Agnes were both lovely and more natural and lived in.  In all we had a delightful potter around for four days.

We croosed to |Falmouth yesterday - again a quiet passage of 11 hours or so.  Tim left us this morning and Val and I went on to Plymouth, where we are now.  We ventured a line in the water and out popped a mackerel, then another and ....  They're all pretty small so we think we can manage the five for dinner tonight.

The bad news is the weather.  Just about everything short of gales is in the forecast.  Rain, thunder, strong winds (south - we need to go southeast), fog.  So far we are expecting a locust-free passage but who knows?  None of the forecasts we seen seem to be predicting any improvements, but we're still looking for one that does.  We may stick around here for some time!

Irish Reflections

We've almost done Ireland.  We're in Kilmore Quay in the Southeastern corner.  It's still hot and sunny and we've been motoring most of the way down the coast.  Hot weather tends to lead to more clothes to need washing and machines aren't always available so Val has developed a constructive hobby (above)!  Marion and Grant stayed a couple of days and we did some motoring, some birdwatching and some walking together - all very pleasant and a far cry from some of our Scottish experiences.  We notice a huge variety of places and huge contrasts in relative affluence. Three days ago we were in Arklow; a town that's clearly struggling, with boarded up shops, broken glass on the pavements and drunks in the street in the afternoon.  And now in Kilmore all is bright and freshly painted, with expensive restaurants.

In between we went to Wexford, a historic town with a very large and extremely shallow harbour.  Even with our lifting keel it took a certain amount of nerve to follow the tortuously winding channel for 5 miles, beteen mudbanks laden with large groups of seals, ready to laugh their heads off were we to run aground.  Cry into your Guinness seals!  We didn't!

But a constant feature of everywhere we've stopped has been the helpfulness and friendliness of everyone we've met (and it's very easy to meet people here!).  Nevermore so than in Wexford where we were found a mooring, welcomed into the sailing club, and ferried into town by people we'd never met before.  England isn't often like this!

A recent highlightwas a bird reserve in Wexford where in addition to a large variety mainly of water birds we saw a couple of mountain hares playing.  One came for a drink just across a small pond from us (see below).

We will be here  in Kilmore a few days until our friend Tim arrives from England on Saturday to accompany us on the longish (120 miles, 24 hour) passage to the Scillies.

Foreign Parts

We've been skipping down the eastern Irish coast, through some pleasant places - quite a contrast to the wilderness and emptyness we had in the northwest.  Strangford Lough was lovely; we anchored and pottered happily about.  The people were unvarying friendly and helpful.   And yet...  they do talk rather loudly (and sometimes incomprehensibly).  And their signs seem to indicate something.  On the gate of a fishing lake we saw a sign that said (verbatim).  "Members Only.  Gate nust be Locked  before Leaving.  By Order of The Committee."  You might have thought that to club members "Don't forget to lock the gate" would be better?  There were several similar instances.  Make of it what you will.

We're now in Carlingford, a very pretty town on another large inland waterway, this time surrounded by mountains.  Val and I climbed one - Carlingford Mountain (588m) today, and a good walk it was in the heat.  Yes heat!  It finally arrived, so now we can complain about that,  It's lovely and hot and sunny unless you actually want to do anything.  And there's no wind (but please don't anyone pray for rain and gales!).  But we're finally abroad!  In Euroland! After only 8 weeks!

We plan to explore the lough some more tomorrow then go down to Malahide, just outside Dublin, where we're meeting Marion and Grant.  No photo this time - it's all too slow loading, I'm afraid.

Farewell Scotland - and a Change of Plan

We left Scotland yesterday (Monday) and are now in Ballycastle, N Ireland.  We felt we'd had a good go at Scotland:  14 islands, inumerable lochs on islands and the mainland, birds, dolphins, seals in quantity.  And more good food and even good beer than we might have expected.

We met White Magic in Coll and sailed together to Bunessan in SW Mull and then Colonsay.  That took us through the Threshnish Islands, where we stopped to see the puffins on Lunga (see above) - amazingly not at all shy of people (one theory is that the people deter the the skuas - their real enemy).  Then past Staffa and Fingals cave and through the complex rock-strewn tide-races of the Sound of Iona.  All memorable stuff.  Our last Scottish harbour  was Port Ellen on Islay, where they have a rough approximation to a marina!  It was only the second time in the month of June that we could step ashore without using the dinghy!

The point of plans is to change them.  And we have.  Continuing passages and stays in remote places, with worries about whether the anchor will hold when the gale hits, where we will get water, whether we can get ashore to buy food, not to mention whether we can get some washing done, take their toll.  More on Val, who is still suffering from a frozen shoulder, than on me.  And the thought of another 7 weeks in western Ireland, in broadly similar conditions, with the added bonus of the exposed Atlantic coast was uninviting.  Val finally decided she'd had enough halfway from Scotland to Ireland so we whimped out, changed course and will return down the east side of Ireland where there are several marinas and smaller waves (we hope!).  We're still working on the plan, but it will mean missing some of the people we had hoped to see in the west.  Luckily the timing is right so we will still see Marion and Grant, but now in Dublin.