Close encounter with a dolphin

We are currently in Douarnenez, a big port full of wooden boats, many in various states of disrepair. Needless to say, definitely up Dave's street! We've been here nearly a week now, weather is wet and winds blowing from the south so no good for progress but we've met lots of different boats passing through.
An English guy on a classic old Bristol Pilot cutter that turned out to be newly built about 12 years ago and had already had clocked up some 35,000 miles.
A Dutch couple on their way home after a 2-year trip round Portugal and the Mediterranean. They had a converted steel fishing boat/barge, absolutely immaculate inside, beautiful veneers and a spotless engine room, had taken him 20 years to do...
An Irish guy who regularly sails these waters single-handed, including the long passage to and from Ireland. He left the Scillies at the same time as us and said we looked great screaming long with all sails set. Sadly he didn't take a photo...
A Norwegian boat on delivery from the Balearics who managed to get his anchor caught solid under an enormous mooring chain. Dave dived down to clear it and was treated to an impromptu visit from a large dolphin. He had quite a shock when a large grey shape appeared in his face mask 15 foot under water. The dolphin stayed around for a good twenty minutes and even allowed Dave to stroke it. We paid a fortune in New Zealand for just such an experience but the dolphins weren't playing that day! C'est la vie...

Sailing to France

After picking up our replacement depthsounder and having just one last night with our friends Simon and Kathy, we finally left the Emerald Isle. We skirted the Fastnet Rock on the way, our first proper view of it due to almost constant mist, and it looks much like it does in pictures.
We had fair winds for the first 16 hours, then the wind died completely just after midnight and we motored the rest of the way to the Scilly Isles. We had a day there to recover from our two-hour shifts the previous night, had our last proper roast dinner then up with the sails and off to France the following day.
Again we had a great wind on our starboard quarter, and plenty of it, we touched 9.3 knots on the GPS, arriving in Camaret (near Brest) yesterday morning after a 24 hour sail. We are now enjoying sunshine, cheap restaurants doing 3-course meals for 10 euros (£7) and all the joys of France. Next stop Douarnenez...

on top of Great Blasket

on top of Great Blasket
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

By some miracle, we have been blessed with incredible weather over the past week, the local radio announced today that temperatures were due to reach their highest ever recorded in Ireland. Wow!
It’s certainly been hot, but no wind for sailing. We have taken advantage of the settled conditions to explore places that would be impossible in strong winds or swell.
We passed through the narrow Dursey Sound, a shortcut between the mainland and Dursey Island, with an unseen submerged rock bang in the middle of the channel and a cable car twenty feet above the mast.
We visited Derrynane, a beautiful harbour whose daunting entrance leads between rocks 35 feet apart. The other end of the harbour led to long sandy beaches full of local families soaking up the sunshine, with people actually swimming (most in wetsuits admittedly).
The next day, another 30 miles to Valentia, again a narrow entrance leading to a huge natural harbour. We passed Puffin Island on route, which lived up to its name, the island and surrounding water was full of puffins, guillemots and shearwaters.
From Valentia, it was a short hop to the Blasket Islands, the most westerly point in Europe, and which had been recommended to us by several people. We approached Great Blasket on a misty day and were a little disappointed with what appeared to be a bleak, rugged and empty island. As we rounded the northeast tip, a gentle green slope bathed in sunshine came into view, containing several old stone ruins, with a curved sandy beach at the foot of the hill. We dropped anchor and were immediately greeted by ‘Fungi’, the local tame dolphin. We scrambled to the top of the ‘village’ (what’s left of it) and opened a cold can of beer in honour of our friend Ed, who has always had a yearning to come here “before his hand leaves the bucket of water”. Tis a wonderful spot!
Later, while trying to sail to nearby Dingle in the lightest of breezes, Dave managed to catch us a cod for our tea. We then received the phone call we had been waiting for. Our depth-sounder, which died in the Scilly Isles, and was sent for repair from there, has finally made its way to our friends’ house in Ireland.
Today, we took a slight detour to motor round the Skellig Islands. These are two sheer rocks about twelve miles off the coast. Little Skellig is grey and white(from the birds) and is home for up to 20,000 gannets. The noise was quite impressive!
Great Skellig is a contrasting grassy green and has the ruins of a 14th century monastery and Christian settlement on its 200 metre high summit. The stone steps leading up look quite daunting, but there is a more gentle path, winding around the outside for the day-tripper tourists. It was some feat in those days to built not just the monastery but also an old stone lighthouse perched on the jagged clifftops. We wondered why they chose such a remote place to settle and what they did for food?

We’re now slowly making our way back down the coast and will soon be on the lookout for favourable winds for the trip to France.

seals galore

seals galore
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

After the first week of tropical sunshine (at times anyway), the weather has now returned to a more typical Irish climate – heavy showers and strong westerly winds. We spent a couple of days in the ‘civilisation’ of Bantry (they have a cinema!!), then moved 5 miles north to the beautiful natural harbour of Glengarriff. Practically every rock and tiny ‘island’ in the harbour has got its own group of seals basking in the sun, hence a popular spot for the tourists.
As well as seals, the harbour was surprisingly full of jellyfish. Some tiny pinkish see-through ones and bigger brown ‘compass jellyfish’ with nasty-looking trailing tentacles.
Dave had managed to buy yet another tree in Bantry, so we spent most of the time planing up yet another new boom. This one has tighter growth rings than our last tree, (which is already showing signs of weakness) so this will hopefully be stronger. Also, the tree was felled in December, so is not as young as the last one, which was growing until the day Dave chose it in the forest!
We did find time to climb the nearby ‘Sugarloaf Mountain’ and sample the local wares in the form of pints of Beamish - the only thing on offer apart from woollen jumpers...
We also had a lucky (or not so lucky, depending on how you see it) incident. We had moved in to the pontoon to top up with water and on moving back out to re-anchor, found the anchor wouldn’t grip. Dave pulled up the chain to have another go, only to find the anchor was no longer attached. The ‘anchor link’ had broken in two. We attached our spare anchor and managed to get it to grip for the night.
In the morning, Dave tried trawling for the lost anchor with both a magnet and a grappling iron, but without success. He even got on his diving kit and braved the jellyfish to scan the bottom, but with very soft mud, there was no trace of any anchor.
So we are annoyed to have lost our main anchor but thankful that it happened when it did. If the anchor link had failed while we were ashore, with strong winds blowing we could have lost the boat itself and not just the anchor. Makes you think…
Anyway, we’ve now moved on, back up Bantry Bay to a fishing harbour called Castletownbere, where we’re awaiting better weather to hopefully explore a bit further north.

Under sail

20062L
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

Finally got a picture of ‘Ros Ailither’ steaming along under sail. This taken at the Brixham Trawler race by Chris Slack (check out his website chrisslack.com).
As found by Vasper.

View from The Tin Pub, Ahakista

View from The Tin Pub, Ahakista
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

From Schull, we went round the corner to Dunmanus Bay, where we anchored in the tiny ‘Kitchen Cove’, and were welcomed by a friend of a friend called Mary who swam a quarter of a mile out to the boat to greet us. I thought that sort of thing only happened in Tahiti!
The landing beach led up to a wonderful tin pub, where we sat and supped a pint or two, just to appreciate the view of our boat, of course...
We took five hours to sail the ten miles out of the Bay, beating against the wind all the way, just to prove that the boat will do it. And it did!
We have had a great reception in Ireland so far, and lots of compliments about the boat. Plenty of people seem to recognise it as ‘one of the Ros fleet’, some twenty boats that were built in Killybegs to the same lines and all named ‘Ros ........’
We have twice been given a bucket of fresh prawns. It was rather disconcerting to realise that not only were they alive and kicking, but had long sharp pincers on them too. After much deliberation and consultation of cookery books (all useless), we mercilessly threw them into boiling water and managed to devour them despite the guilt!
After an exciting sail down-wind at up to 8.5 knots, we’re currently anchored in the green and pretty Bantry Bay. I know it's famous for something but not exactly sure what. A song? The prawns? Mussels maybe?