Gleangarriff to Baltimore

Boy, having arrived in Ireland, internet opportunities have disappeared (all the viewable ones are secured) – until now – now that we’re paying 40€’s to tie up to a dock in Kinsale!

What’s been happening…

Well, we arrived in Glengarriff – a much smaller town – village – than we were expecting. Very picturesque and good Guinness(!), but not much else. We did get to try out our bubble (cockpit enclosure) to good effect in the damp, cool conditions. Very nice to be able to have dinner outside when it’s raining – which it does daily at various times throughout the day and night – but fortunately not for very long!

Laundry and money were a bit of a problem – lots of the former, precious little of the latter… Glengarriff doesn’t have a bank, an ATM, Internet or a launderette! Time to move on.

So, after a couple of days (including allowing me to buy a lovely Arran sweater) we do. Planning to head to Baltimore – which is pretty stupid since we don’t have a weather forecast, it’s about 10 hours away and we have to navigate around the south west cape of Ireland – Missen Head. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. Half way down Bantry Bay, the wind driven rain reached 30 kts in our face – so, with reefed main and a little jib out, we decided to head for cover. We motioned towards Lawrence Cove on the north side of Bere Island – and as we did so, the Genoa decided to unravel itself! Something broke and allowed the bloody great thing to come out – necessitating a manual pull down – always fun in a high wind! But we managed – and an hour or so later we were tucked up on a free visitor’s mooring in Lawrence Cove – parked right next to another American Flagged sailboat!

Mooring was interesting. Not Laurie’s finest hour! We were in a tight spot – with little room between the mooring and the rocks behind us… anyway, Laurie gamely took to the dingy to sort things out and did so admirably! Great recovery!

Bere Island is lovely, but there’s not much there. Certainly no laundromats or banks and unfortunately the pub was closed too!

We invited Tony off the American boat for some drinks. We didn’t have much, but Laurie managed to concoct a devilish Manhattan type drink that she and Jane had developed in Horta. Very nice – though we went through a whole bottle of Vodka in a single night!!!!

The following morning we continued our sail to Baltimore. We left at 9am – but forgot to take the engine off the dingy – so had to do so while on the move – made for an interesting getaway! We ended up having a great sail with Code Zero acting as our Genoa – in winds of 10 – 15 kts, making 8+ kts. We rounded Missen Head and then headed for the infamous Fastnet Rock. What an inspiring place!