The alarm was set for 05:00 this morning in hopes there would be wind with the tide. However we didn’t even need to get out of bed to realise there wouldn’t be enough. Probably a good thing as we’d been up the night before watching the England game. Seven o’clock Read more…
Coming out of the harbour this morning I thought we might have to abandon for the day. The swell had built over night and Mentor was rolling around almost uncomfortably. Usually I have enough time to do the porridge dishes and turn the wet suits right side out before we Read more…
Learning from the past two days, we got up early today so we had the tide with us around Wicklow Head. As you can see from the tidal map below, in this area we can have up to 3.9 knots of tide, if we’re going 6 knots through the water, Read more…
The forecast for today was not good, showing 5-6 knots all day. So we turned off our alarm clocks and treating ourselves to a long lie in (it is Saturday after all), and a full Irish fried breakfast. The around Ireland regatta was setting off at 14:00 further north in Read more…
From the longest day yesterday to the shortest today, we’re definitely anything but consistent. Just as we launched this morning we could hear the church bells chiming 09:00. The church spire had been our goal for the last part of yesterday, watching as it gradually grew larger willing ourselves to Read more…
We were up at the crack of dawn along with the fishermen this morning. Kilmore Quay is resident to a number of large trawlers who were all getting ready, loading various supplies and filling up with ice using the conveyor belt on the dock. Don’t think they’re used to leisure Read more…
After a lovely night at Joe’s relatives we had a slow start. The wind was tantalisingly close to being enough, but we knew it was likely to be more of a sea breeze than anything else, if we were to go out to our way-point (where we last finished), there Read more…
Today we decided to visit the Saltee Islands. There are two islands ~5km off the coast of Kilmore Quay in the St. George’s Channel where we’ve been for the last 5 days. The smaller one, Little Saltee, allegedly has Reindeer on it. It’s privately owned so we weren’t able to Read more…
Armed with my bag-for-life, a good (audio) book and a big hat I spent the morning exploring the rock pools at low tide. It was glassy flat and I was joined by several herons digging around the shallows for their mid-morning snack. Yesterday there were three of us beach cleaning Read more…
Coming into Kilmore Quay last night we were like a well oiled machine. The berth we were allocated (or at least we thought we were), was down the middle isle of pontoons. After heading down to look at the spot we then only had about 3 foot either side to Read more…