Ever the optimists we were hoping to move on this morning. But the wind was just as strong as the forecast had predicted, and we woke at 02:00 to howling winds blowing down from the hills above. All day we could barely see the fish farm only a few hundred Read more…
With rain forecast for the afternoon, we took the opportunity to explore some of the secluded beaches and secret coves on Iona and Mull. It was beautiful heading between the big granite islands emerging from everywhere, all cracked and battered from years of winter storms. Using the satellite map on Read more…
A big day of drinking requires a healthy breakfast – 16 sausages, 16 rashers of bacon, 12 eggs, 600 grams of mushrooms, 1 tin of baked beans, half a white sausage and half a black (all that was left from when we were in Ireland). And all that just me! Read more…
As soon as I announced this crazy idea of travelling around Great Britain my friend Jeff immediately said he’d join for the portion of it for which we’d be on the Isle of Islay up in Scotland, famous for its peaty whiskies. So with one day’s notice he’d managed to Read more…
After a well earned sleep and a planned rest day we got on with a few boat jobs in the morning. There was a light wind but with a strong tide against us and wind also against us we would not have gone anywhere quick. By 1pm the wind was 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…
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…
With a high pressure ( anti cyclone ) sat over the British Isles blocking all the low pressures systems away it looks like we will be here for a while, so we decided to earn our ice cream with a beach clean. Armed with our Ikea bags and a potato Read more…