Yesterday we anchored. 1^st time in an age. In the middle of the wide open bay of Castletown, Isle of Man in 17 knots gusting to 25 – but the sea is flat, it’s not rolling, so life is good!

Had a nice sail over – mostly downwind wing on wing with headsail poled out – until the end when we were hitting 9’s on a broad reach – so we reefed – all systems functionally at nominal – not bad for a first sail of the season.

Getting off the dock was probably the most interesting event – with wind blowing the bow off. Our slip was in such a position that allowing the bow to blow off would have been catastrophic, so we ended up warping off the bow with some help from Tony at Whitehaven Marina – worked like a charm!

Today we took a bus ride to the other side of the island and took a nice walk along a disused railway then up to a very pretty waterfall… It being Sunday, the buses aren’t quite so frequent – so by the time we got back, our dinghy was high and dry. With some huffing and puffing and some help from a very nice guy, we managed to float it off before the really low tide… Start of the season – Balme idiocies strike again!

Tomorrow we head for Wales – probably will stop in an anchorage south of Holyhead and then make for Caernarfon the following day for the start of the OCC Celtic Cruise (we kinda have to be there since we’re leading it!).

Need I say more?

Laurie in the Gorse

Pretty waterfall – IOM’s biggest.

High and dry!

Toodle-oo! is on the move again! Finally departing Whitehaven, Cumbria (UK) on the tide tomorrow (May 3rd). We’ll be wending our way slowly to Caernarfon via the Isle of Man for the beginning of the OCC Celtic Cruise – which will take us back up through the Isle of Man, to Bangor, Northern Ireland and on to Scotland, finishing in the Whisky haven of Port Ellen, Islay.

After that we’ll spend a few weeks in the Scottish Islands before heading off to Norway’s Lofoten Islands. We actually delayed our departure from Whitehaven seeking a longer term visa for Laurie so that we could spend more time in Scotland before she’s kicked out of the country, but bureaucracy got in the way, so our plans to sail to Norway this year stand. We’re headed towards the Arctic Circle for the first time.

I’ll do my best to post more in the coming weeks…

Meanwhile, quiet plug for Whitehaven – really easy marina to work with, exceedingly well protected, all the staff super friendly and helpful. The town’s got everything (though some of the pubs could use some help!) and the Lake District is right around the corner.

It’s been a while… a short update on where we are, what we’re doing…

Portuguese: Laurie has been learning Portuguese in order to qualify for Portuguese citizenship. She started when we were in Ponta Delgada. Without citizenship, our stay in Europe is complicated by visa issues – so much so that Laurie went back to the US at the beginning of November and didn’t come back until mid January – having taken the language test up in Boston’s Portuguese embassy. SHE PASSED!!

Unfortunately, it appears that the whole application process is so long winded that it may not help our stay in Europe, so she’ll be heading back to the US again in March – just so that we can stay in the UK a little longer and explore Scotland.

Generator: Having finally got it out of the boat, I sent the alternator part away to be re-wound. First company gave up. Took it to another – they gave up too. Apparently they can’t find out what’s wrong and so don’t know how to fix it. This alternator is not made anymore and the generator supplier (Nextgeneration) has switched to an Italian alternator. To fit it to the engine,

Finally fixed!!!

I needed all sorts of mountings and fittings. I ordered them all from next gen (in the US) and ended up flying out for Christmas to pick them up and bring them back. The alternator I bought direct from Italy… End result: after 3 months staring at half a generator in the cockpit, I finally assembled it, got it back in the boat and lo and behold it works!

It was nice to spend some time with Laurie while I was back in the US too!!!

Celtic Cruise: We’ve taken on organization of another sailing cruise for the OCC. The Celtic Cruise will start in Wales, go to the Isle of Man, on to Ireland then finish in Scotland. We’ve already got 15 boats signed up for it.

Low House – Home for February

A couple of days ago we moved off Toodle-oo! and are now living in a lovely old house near Cockermouth just north of the Lake District. We’re here for the whole month, looking after the place while the owners are holidaying in New Zealand. It’s a big spot, very comfortable, with an Aga which Laurie is starting to learn. They have a dozen bird feeders outside – our major task therefore is to keep them all filled with seed!

The house is within sight of some of the northern lake district peaks – currently powder coated with snow…

Looking over to Skiddaw from our new home!

Kitchen Window view. Blue, Great, & Coal Tits, Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Robins, Black Birds, Pheasant, Woodpeckers, etc…

Toodle-oo! will be hauled out next week and her mast removed for servicing and so that she can fit into a shed, where we’ll have Coppercoat applied to the hull – a longer lasting antifouling solution. With any luck it’ll last up to 10 years… While she’s out, we’ll give her some TLC with a wax and buff plus all the usual out-of-the-water maintenance projects…

Meanwhile we’ve had some lovely walks around the Lake District and Dales…

Yewbarrow, Wastdale Head

Looking over to Scafell Pike from Yewbarrow

Nice View!

Wastwater from Yewbarrow

Wastwater

So we’re in our winter berth in Whitehaven. An easy motorboat ride up from Wales and even the scarily named “Swellies” in the Menai Strait proved to be an easy obstacle. We did manage a little bit of sailing, but with the wind on the nose, we were not making a good course, so we opted for the feeble way out – as we had to catch the tide right when arriving in Whitehaven.

We settled down to some jobs that needed to be done before Laurie jumps ship to head back to the US, so we got all the sails off and folded. Some work needed so we’ll take them over to Goacher Sails on the basis of a couple of recommendations (thank you!).

I then set about dismantling the Generator so that we could lift it out into the cockpit where I could separate generator from engine. The generator apparently needs rewinding. Getting the thing out is not too complex unless you’re a complete and utter idiot like me.

Fortunately, the generator will lift straight out through the cockpit locker and we can use the boom as a lifting gantry. I set up the main halyard onto the outhaul car and strapped a 6:1 vang pulley between the boom and the generator and started hauling. I couldn’t quite separate the exhaust coupling, so had Laurie winch the halyard up. She put everything into it, but no go, we couldn’t lift it.

Laurie started pestering me with silly questions about how I had it set up which I batted off, deciding instead that she’d lost too much muscle tissue in all our recent lazy days! I asked her to have another heave – and she did. Loud crack. Generator settles back down on it’s mounts (with my finger trapped – fortunately no damage). Oops… When I come up to the cockpit, I find that the outhaul has somehow flown forward – thereby letting the boom down a bit. We stop and think. I’m clueless.

Laurie goes below somewhat frustrated (and no doubt annoyed) and then comes back up with more pissy little questions… How’ve you got this thing rigged?? It wasn’t that difficult last time!

YOU IDIOT! If you want to raise the boom, you’d best let off the mainsheet first!!!

10 minutes later, with halyard attached to the topping lift eye, the generator is easily lifted and sitting on the cockpit seat… Now, I wonder what’s wrong with the outhaul…?

We arrived in Wales at the Menai Straits – a canal that runs between Wales and Anglesey. We were keen to visit the Straits for a few reasons – Felinheli is home to two OCC boats, Three Ships (Chris and Fi) and Ocean Hobo (Ian and Linda). I’d met Ian and Linda in Antigua, and then we met them all on the Azores Pursuit. Fi is also on the OCC committee – so we had lots to talk about! At the north east end of the straits lies the university town of Bangor – where I studied Agriculture for a misguided year. It also has the benefit of being located close to Snowdonia National Park and finally, I have two nieces (Cass and Alice) that live in the area with their families. Lots of reasons to visit!

It’s about 12 miles end to end…

Laurie, Chris, Linda, Ian, Fi, Bill

Fi and Chris were wonderful – arranging a mooring for us at Felinheli and then hosting us wonderfully with ferry to the grocery store, doing our laundry and feeding us! They are the Regional Rear Commodores for the UK and take the role very seriously. They have been seriously great hosts! Yesterday, Chris dropped us off in the middle of Snowdonia (maybe he’s trying to get rid of us?) allowing us to do a superb walk on a crystal clear day!

That’s Snowdon in the background

Mountains and Valleys

Moel Eilio to Llanberis

The mooring proved interesting – especially at the reversal of the tide when we had strong wind against tide setting up a very nasty chop – so much so that it was extremely challenging boarding from the dinghy. In the end we began to chafe through one of the mooring strops, and with heavier wind due in a couple of days (storm ‘Callum’), we decided to take advantage of the marina facilities and we’re now shoe-horned into the marina.

We rented a car for the weekend and stayed a night with Simon and Sally Currin in their beautiful house near Montgomery. Simon is OCC Vice Commodore, sally used to be treasurer and we had some interesting OCC debates (I lost) and followed it up with a lovely walk the following morning. On the way back, we stopped in for unexpected dinner at Cass and Graham’s mansion – they bought a massive fixer-upper in Bala and have done a magnificent restoration job on it. It’s a very comfy home.

We were certainly pleased to have moved into the marina – when Callum arrived, he did so with a bang – and 72 knot gusts! Fortunately the highest we saw in the Marina was just 37… Outside on the moorings the boats were heeling like crazy, 2 sank at their moorings, one looks like he’ll lose his mainsail another looks like the Genoa will take some serious repair.

Menai     If you click the link, there’s a short video of the conditions below…

Blowing in the mooring field…

Well Heeled!

Today we have Alice and her throng (including newbie Agatha!) visit Toodle-oo! and then in a couple of days we’ll be off for our final passage of the year – across the dreaded Irish Sea to Whitehaven, our winter berth in Cumbria.

As we left Crookhaven on the southwest corner of Ireland, we weren’t sure if we were going to make it a little way up the coast to Castletownshend, or rather further to Kinsale – or even possibly head off for an overnight passage to Wales! We quickly dropped the idea of Wales since we were planning to arrive in Caernarfon, at the southern end of the Menai Straights – which prove to be a significant navigational challenge, requiring optimal weather and being in time with the tides to cross Caernarfon Bar – we’d leave that challenge for another day. Instead we opted for Kinsale – cruising mecca of Ireland. We had a super sail, in lovely weather – beam reaching in 15 knots!

We’d been to Kinsale before – in 2013 – when we tied alongside at the yacht club. This year, being cheap skates now, we decided to anchor a little upstream of the yacht club. We found a spot with plenty of swinging room, anticipating needing a lot of scope to contend with the current that can flow here…  we deployed the anchor and it immediately disappeared under our keel and we were abruptly brought up short as it bit. The wind against tide was playing havoc with our technique – especially when I got the snubber attached – which went down our starboard side, while the chain went down the port side! This just wasn’t going to work, so we opted for the middle ground and took a relatively low cost £10/night visitor’s mooring.

At our last visit to Kinsale, OCC Port Officer Flor Long outdid himself by getting our American propane bottles filled. Unfortunately for us, Flor was in England for a Grandson’s christening, but Dingle PO Harvey Kenny once again came to our rescue and whisked us off to the propane store, where unfortunately we learned that the filling opportunity no longer exists. We’ll have to make other arrangements when we get to Whitehaven.

Harvey was again a super host and took us into Cork University where he studied law. It was lovely to wander around the gracious old limestone buildings with throngs of young students making their way to classes.

We met up with Layton and Meghan, a young American couple living and working in Kinsale, with aspirations to go cruising… It was certainly nice to be able to offer encouragement to such a lovely couple – I hope they get out there and enjoy the freedom of cruising.

We were in Kinsale for just under a week when the winds blew favorably for us to head along the south coast and position ourselves for a short crossing to Menai right at the south west corner of Ireland in Dunmore East. We anchored there and stayed a couple of nights – it was pretty enough, but not much to do… Our weather window to Menai opened up and we did an overnight passage using the favorable tides in the horrible Irish Sea, and arrived right on high tide at Caernarfon Bar, with almost no wind, so its’ crossing was uneventful. We’re back in the UK…

We arrived in Bantry expecting to stay for 4 or 5 days – but then some unusual Irish weather showed up – in the form of 3 named storms within a week! We decided to stay put – even taking a couple of days on a marina pontoon – since the new Bantry marina is very sheltered within the harbour… Winds forecast at over 50 knots came as forecast – but we were fortunate in our sheltered berth to see ‘only’ 43knots! It looked horrendous just outside the harbour – where we’d been!

We ended up staying in Bantry for 2 weeks, making the best of whenever breaks in the weather presented themselves, to get out and about and enjoyed a couple of nice walks.

That’s some beef!

Irish Donkeys

Market day in Bantry has it’s rewards!

I’m the king of the castle!

Enjoying the views over Bantry

We took a bus ride over to Glengarriff to visit the famous gardens on the island of Garinish…

Dangerous stepping stones in the gardens of Garinish, Glengariff

Pretty!

Ahh…

Stylish!

What a contrast now – a high has arrived and is sitting over Ireland and England giving us beautiful clear sunny and cool days. We had a cracking sail from Bantry down to Crookhaven and tomorrow we’re debating going just around the corner to Sckull, a little further to Castletownshend or a bit of a reach and go all the way to Kinsale… Since we’re no good at keeping to a plan, you’ll have to wait to find out where we ended up!

Anchored off Crookhaven (amid hundreds of empty mooring balls!)

Good Guinness – and GREAT crab sandwiches!

Moon-rise over Crookhaven

Sunset in Crookhaven

The only thing we’re missing is buddies! We seem to be the only cruising boat left in Ireland!

Best guess, it was 51 years ago that the Balme family rolled up in their C reg Cortina Estate and plonked a couple of tents in a field by Killmackillogue’s harbour. (Interestingly, the chart has it’s spelling as Killmackiloge and actually where we are is Bunaw Harbour…) Anyway, a story I often tell (actually it was my Dad’s story, but I adopted it)… In the morning, Dad and I walked down to the harbour where there’s only a couple of buildings – one of which is a Pub… Dad looked in and the publican came out to greet him with; “I’m terribly sorry Sir, we’re not open quite yet, but if you’d care to come in, you can have a drink while yer waitin’!”… Instead of staying there just a day or two, we spent our entire 2 week vacation in Killmackillogue.

The pub is still there – though the new owner, Helen, only moved in in 1974 so didn’t remember me and the fact that I drank the pub dry of ginger beer 51 years previously!

Changes for the better – 51 years ago I’d have only had a Ginger Beer in my glass!

The approach to Killmackillogue

What a fantastic place this is. Laurie, skeptical that it was simply a run down memory lane for me agrees – it was a really relaxing week in a very beautiful and secluded spot. We were able to take several walks – even to the top of Knockatee – a distinctive hill above Killmackillogue – and were able to end the walks at a marvellous pub – where Helen provided the very best mussels and crab or salmon sandwiches.

Whether Cloudy/Rainy…

… or Sunny …

… there’s always lots of colour!

We came for a couple of days – spent a week! Highly recommend this beautiful and quiet spot on the south shore of the Kenmare River.

Upper Killmackillogue Harbour

On the way up KNockatee

The Top! Toodle-oo! moored in front of the pier.

Yes, we both got there!

Another Summit!

Notes on navigation – if you come here, especially at night (no, don’t do it!), aim for the channel markers – right at them! If you stray just 20 ft to the right of the last red, you’ll be in amongst the mussel rafts – which are unlit! The leading lights into Bunaw harbour at night would be good – if you dare – during the day, they’re not turned on – but the Navionics charts are accurate, so no worries. We anchored the first night, but were offered the tour boat, Rosa’s 3 ton mooring – so took it. Glad we had it as we had quite the blow one night.

Next stop: Bantry.

We’ve been in DIngle for a touch over a week now and it’s been a lovely – sitting on the dock!

OCC Port Officer, Harvey Kenny was very resourceful and entertaining – arranging for Customs to clear us in here in Dingle, taking us on a tour of DIngle Peninsula, regaling us with stories from his time as a judge and then best of all, picking up our Chart Chip from a chandler in Cork. Thanks so much Harvey!

This is what an Irish Harbor can look like! (Dunquin)

A Harvey story!

Abigail came to visit us – along with her friends Tanner and Christine. It was a bit of a squeeze on Toodle-oo! – cosy! but we all managed. Got to take a nice 8 mile walk around Brandon Point – nice other than it was a wee bit damp under foot for those without waterproof shoes.

Three Beauties – Tanner, Abigail and Christine

Brandon Bay

Dad and Abigail

A lovely day for a walk

Abigail

Brandon Bay

Beautiful Colors!

Do those hurt??

Dingle itself is a very nice town – touristy but that kind of adds to the atmosphere here. We’ve not seen Fungie – the Dolphin that has made the town famous, and earned it many millions of tourist Euros – but we see boatload after boatload going out for a quick glimpse of the none too shy Dolphin. We’re all wondering what happens when he passes away – he’s been here 40 years and I gather life expectancy is only 24. Hopefully they’re training up a replacement!

Strange occurrence yesterday – found a dead seagull on our bimini! It had apparently flown

Whacked by a Windmill

through the windmill! Poor bugger died with lunch in his beak!

We were going to leave this morning for Kilmakiloge up the Kenmare river some 50 miles away – but as we lay in bed this morning at 8:00 (our scheduled departure time!) it was blowing a hoolie outside so we decided better of it and we’ll just head across the bay to Valentia once the wind eases a little.

Land Ho! Approaching Dingle Bay in darkness, but the lighthouse at Tearaght Island is beaming out… Earier, before it got dark, we spotted the rocky outcrop Great Skellig, murky on the horizon…

Sailed port tack all day making great time – 189 miles in the last 24 hours – all directed towards Dingle!

As a consequence, we’ll arrive around midnight to 1:00am tonight – and rather than try to navigate our way into Dingle using only an iPad – not something we’re used to – at night, we’ve decided that we’ll throw an anchor down in the adjacent bay – Ventry Harbour, which has a wide open entrance and provides good protection from North Westerly winds (which we’ve got).

We’ll move into Dingle in the morning – where a hammerhead slip awaits us!

All in all a good trip – but it’s a shame its so cold and grey!