Aleria Update 22
Update from Aleria #22:
There and back again: limping and sipping our way home @ 53° 51’ N 09° 38’ W
We return to Clew Bay after almost a year and it hardly feels like we’ve been gone at all. It is more like we’re just returning from a weekend cruise, having gone there and back again. Except that ‘there’ was a little further afield this time and it took a little longer.
We sail into our home waters with the help of a trough and its associated 20-25 knot dramatic and squally west-north-westerly winds. At the same time the east coast is getting pummeled by a gale (Force 8) and strong storm (Force 10). We hope it doesn’t turn around and head our way. We see few boats and no dolphins today. We marvel at how little development there is along the shores of our beautiful bay when compared to the (other) islands we have visited over the past months; but then again the weather may have a bit to do with that.
We drop anchor to the lee of Inishgowla to await the tide. The storm in the east fortunately stays there, though the wind is freshening. We tidy up Aleria, pack our stuff and wait, wondering what a whirlpool bath and a queen size bed that doesn’t move will feel like after almost a year underway.
We have spent the past two weeks cruising the south and west coasts of Ireland. This is where the real beauty of our island nation lies awaiting the unsuspecting visitor. This is where our hearts feel content. There is nothing that compares with the cool crisp air, the hot summer sun of the lingering days at these high latitudes, the verdant colours, the dramatic mountains and lighting, the pastoral landscapes, the pint of soothing stout in a warm friendly pub, and the charm of the people. They take your hand, look you deep in the eye, and measure your soul during a simple hello. There is nothing that compares with the sly smile of acceptance and the warmth of the welcome if you pass muster. Nothing.
Of course, nothing much compares with the ‘grand soft’ weather either. It is quite lovely between gales, and one learns quickly to time one’s picnics, walks and jaunts up the coast. The weather actually makes you appreciate the good moments when they come. You then sit in awe of the dramatic moments as they recede into the distance and the lighting changes. It’s the kind of weather that inspires artists and writers to create masterpieces on a grand scale.
We had forgotten how beautiful the sky looks when the clouds are roaring past. In the Caribbean sunshine, where every day is the same as the one before and the ones to come, things just don’t stand out as much. Yes, the blues are amazingly blue and the greens are uniquely green, but they never change there. Here in Ireland, everything changes from moment to moment. If you don’t catch it just now, it’s gone forever because no two moments, two hours, or two days are ever alike. Perhaps these are the reasons I have fallen so deeply in love with my newly adopted country. I feel that we have truly come home.
The difference between this arrival in Ireland and our last is that, as opposed to arriving with the full fanfare of a first crossing combined with a frantic move from one country to another, this time we are cruising home at our leisure and experiencing life along the coasts. Interestingly, not one of our cruising friends has gone directly home. They are all delaying by cruising along the coasts of France and England. With that tactic come both benefits and risks. Anything can still happen.
Kinsale is a really lovely, albeit somewhat touristy, town. Kinsale Yacht Club Marina provided exceptional access though it is exorbitantly expensive (50 euro per night for our berth, an extra 6.50 per night harbour fees and 2 euro per person per shower) with otherwise limited facilities. We had to raft up the first two nights as the marina was bursting with the ten racing yachts taking up the full expanse of the visitors berths.
Kinsale was the most expensive marina encountered in our entire year of cruising. Welcome back to Ireland. There is no island we visited that had prices higher than those here, and many of them were far more remote than Ireland. KYC has no fuel and no laundromat, which we sorely missed after a long passage. These are services you will find at most cruising destinations. The showers left a ‘bit’ to be desired (communal ...and you have to get a coin at the bar upstairs for 5 minutes timed by a machine – ugh, the worst – what are they thinking at these prices?). This was also important as our hot water heater had failed and it was bloody cold here – in July! (Our blood must have thinned in the Caribbean.) And their garbage facility was moved to the dinghy lot – quite far to walk with 3 weeks worth of (leaky) garbage in hand. It’s funny how we now rate marinas and clubs first by their shower, garbage disposal, water, laundry, and fuel facilities, in that order. (Some might argue that pubs, restaurants and supermarkets rate higher than some items on our list. We can discuss this point.) These are all some of the cruising essentials.
Kinsale is in any case an exceptional stopover with lots of restaurants, pubs, good provisioning, art galleries, castles, forts, churches, shops – all the stuff one needs for shore-based exploration. Our friend Jane drove down with her friend Suzie and treated us to a lovely celebration dinner at the fabulous restaurant Fishy Fishy. They were sold out for the evening and we had been turned away, but Jane managed to get us in. It was a real treat watching her maneuver successfully around the maitre d’. Suzie, a veterinarian, was recuperating grandly from back surgery at Kilshane House under Jane’s watchful eye. They were great company and made a memorable homecoming. Thanks, Jane!
In the tradition of unusual experiences, we had yet another. Herb, our SSB radio weather router, sent us an email asking us to watch out for Golden Eye, a Hinckley Sou’west 42 that had been heading for Scotland but was diverted to the south of Ireland somewhere. Not ten minutes later, Golden Eye came alongside! We rafted them up with us, third deep at the dock, and helped them celebrate their successful passage from Boston to Kinsale. Another rite of passage passed on. They were a bit shaken; having taken a massive sea over the gunwales, two of them were nearly swept overboard; the cockpit had filled with seawater and took a long time to empty destabilizing the boat for a while in 40-50+ knot winds. It turns out they had caught the bottom edge of the storm we had avoided by delaying our arrival offshore. But they pulled themselves together, reprovisioned and moved on toward Oban in Scotland the next day. Fair play and fair winds Golden Eye!
From Kinsale we sailed to Glandore where the sun is supposed to be always shining…except the day before, the day after, and the next day when we were there. A massive low settled in over Iceland and delivered wave after wave of nasty stuff to us in Ireland.
Glandore is a lovely town and we took a long walk along its coast road, stopped off in a pub and visited a nautical book store and an antiques shop. The village church is in a nook hewn out of a cliff and access to it is through a short tunnel. We took pictures from the elevated road of a fleet of dinghies racing around Aleria anchored in the harbour. Little did we know that shortly after this a fishing vessel from Union Hall across the harbour had T-boned her. When we returned, the skipper of the massive trawler came alongside and hailed us. “I might have brushed your boat a bit,” he said. When we looked over the side, our hearts sank. There is significant damage. The port side is scraped along its length, there is a hole above the water line and the fibreglass is stove in and badly cracked. A port is damaged and the toe rail is bent and lifted up off the deck. And that is what we can see. It must have been quite the violent collision. A lighter modern vessel may have not survived. The fisherman is honest and he is insured, praise the lord. Poor Onyx was traumatized, quaking under the covers and would not come out for hours. We are actually quite glad we were not on board when it happened.
We tried to report the incident but that is not easy in a small village in Ireland. There is no harbourmaster or marine police. On the advice of the insurance company we did call the coast guard in Valentia to report the incident for their records. A very nice official took the information and proceeded to tell Alex about how his car got rear-ended last week. Alex listened politely then asked what we should do and if they would come out to inspect the damage. He answered that he did not know. They’d never had a report of a collision where the person at fault was known. He called us back after conferring with supervisors to tell us to sail home, file transit plans along the way for safety, and they would send a surveyor from Dublin to wherever we end up.
Instructions from our insurance company were also to head home. We were then to remove everything, and await further direction. They too would send a surveyor. And so Alex filled the holes with goop as best he could, and we started limping our way home. The respective insurance companies can deal with each other. In any case, it will be a great hassle as there are no repair facilities near home.
As we limp our way home, the anguish subsides as the Guinness and Bulmer’s flow and Aleria sails bravely on. We have a lovely stop in Sherkin Island near Baltimore where Alex realizes his university class came from Germany for a marine biological field trip forty years ago. The man in charge is still there and in his late seventies; but it is Sunday and he is not home. We walk the island and admire its beauty. It is sunny and dry this morning. The world looks much cheerier today.
By chance, we chat with people here and there and get two completely independent recommendations for the same shipwright in Kilrush qualified to do the repair work on Aleria. One was from a boat from the Royal Western YC which tried to get to Spain; they turned back three days later after battling 40 knot southerly headwinds with little progress. Another was from the owners of a local B&B and schooner who know the shipwright well having picked him up hitchhiking many years ago.
As we walked back to the harbour, a woman stops us and asked if we are on the boat from Mayo. “Yes”, we tell her. “Oh, then you just sailed from the Azores, my husband will want to meet you”, she says. We ask how she knew this and she tells us her husband looked up Aleria on the internet. Hmmm. We’ll have to Google ourselves when we get back. Welcome home to Ireland where everyone seems to know everything!
We had a lovely lunch outdoors at the busy Pirates Pub and sailed off to Crookhaven just as another low trough was making its way in and bringing more rain. Drizzle was setting in and the skies were turning greyer by the moment. Fastnet Rock loomed in the distance, softened by the light and the drizzle in a calm sea. It didn’t look menacing at all this day.
Crookhaven turned out to be a lovely and very protected harbour and very alive with Sunday holiday makers. Children were jumping off the pier, sailors sipped their pints on benches along the quay in the light drizzle, and the bar was full of locals settling in for the start of the World Cup Soccer final between the Netherlands and Spain. Our friend Axel must be in Johannesburg watching the match live. We might have been there too if we had kept going.
Instead we were sipping our Guinness and Bulmer’s and realizing we’d had more pints since we got back to Ireland than we’d had in many years before. But we’ve never had a proper chance to cruise Ireland before. It is rather nice to be exploring our home country and loving it.
Our next stop was in Knightstown on Valentia Island in the kingdom of Kerry. What an enigma. Valentia island is beautiful and a great natural harbour. The harbour has a huge development newly completed at the head of the town with a square dock enclosure. We learned that there had been plans for a 200+ slip marina but the future is now uncertain. When the outer docks were first put in, a gale apparently blew them away, and they had to start over. Then the economy crashed. Now the town’s small businesses are wondering what’s in store. There are two pubs and two restaurants. Two galleries are closed. The food shop is not much bigger than Harry Potter’s room in his uncle’s house. The town has “loads of potential”, but that is pretty much it. Looking at the empty marina, it may be the case of they built it and no one came. We waited out a blow quite comfortably there and headed out at the crack of dawn (4 AM) for a long stretch up the west coast to Galway Bay.
The west coast is dramatically beautiful yet forbidding. Storms can come quickly and violently. Between Valentia/Dingle in County Kerry and the Aran Islands in County Galway are virtually no protected harbours without going way up into the Shannon (County Limerick). We saw on the GRIBS (the weather charts we download to our computer using our satellite phone) that a low was tracking exactly across Valentia so we headed out just behind it. Our winds would be light and variable, but we could motorsail easily the 75 miles or so to the Aran Islands. And so it went, with 994 mb pressure all day long, one big shower, blues skies, lots of squalls, winds between 5 and 18 knots from every direction, favourable and unfavourable currents...a bit of everything as we passed all the heads, sometimes seeing them, sometimes not. But we made good progress toward home.
We decided to buzz under the Cliffs of Moher while in the neighbourhood. Although it wasn’t crystal clear viewing, it was pretty amazing to be very insignificant down below and seeing the tiny ant-like tourists up above. We were glad to have a reasonably calm sea state. The cliffs are massive. The surf roars thunderously.
The plan was to stop over in the new harbour facility on Inishmaan, but as we neared the weather turned quite foul and we opted for Inishmor with the large and safe harbour we already knew quite well. We arrived with plenty of light to spare after a 16-hour passage. It stays light until 10 PM this time of year. We had a nice dinner aboard and expected to spend the next day exploring the interesting island again. But after reviewing the GRIBs and listening to the forecast, we realized the weather was about to deteriorate with strong NW winds and the harbour was exposed to the north. We’d have to move on to Inishbofin, about 35 miles distant.
Inishbofin is one of our all-time favourite anchorages. Although the entrance is narrow and daunting with dangerous rocks close at hand on either side – not something one should negotiate in heavy seas, the harbour is very protected with excellent holding. There is a tiny village, a huge Cromwellian fort ruin flanking the anchorage, and beaches. The village has two pubs, a couple of restaurants, a museum, a post office, and a general store. There is a ferry daily and bicycle rentals when the ferry comes in. We want to stay and explore but once again, the weather forecast is for gales approaching, and we decide to move on to Clew Bay and home while we can. We make a special coq au sauce poivre vert (chicken) dinner for our last night aboard to celebrate this amazing journey. Amazingly, the rain holds off until we are done with our romantic dinner on deck in the shadow of Cromwell’s fort, then it lets loose in torrents.
So ends our journey. We sailed into Clew Bay in record time, clocking 10+ knots SOG most of the way. We sit anchored by Inishgowla , one of the drumlins inside Clew Bay, awaiting high tide while the wind blows by at 30 knots. So many pleasant memories flood back, marred by an unpleasant incident that could have been much worse. Aleria will hopefully be made as new, we know, but it still hurts to see her damaged. She has taken such good care of us for more than 20,000 miles so far. (Oh my, “incoming”. Here’s our nephew Cormac with Saoirse and Clare on their way back from Mayo Sailing Club. Impromptu celebration of return! Thanks guys. Lovely to see you.)
As the tide fills in, we start heading for the mooring in our inlet. We are met by Kirstin and Peter, Cormac and Meike and the dogs, Congo, Cloisin and Caesar, for yet another champagne toast. They help us tie up to our mooring just as a squall comes through, and we sip our champagne in 30 knot winds and torrential rain. Welcome home for sure.
We have now learned from four independent sources that the best shipwright in the west of Ireland is the Kiwi-trained man in Kilrush on the Shannon, so it is likely we will soon be heading back south again. Our plans are to unload all our worldly seagoing possessions and deliver Aleria to be mended. We know that in time the event will fade from memory, but it is still with heavy hearts that we will step ashore.
Thanks for reading our stories throughout the past year and sending notes of encouragement in return. We may not have been able to answer all of them, but they meant a great deal to us. It was great to have so many friends with whom to share Aleria’s Great Adventure. We’ll keep a dialogue going when interesting things happen, if you don’t mind.
We plan to spend the winter at home in Ireland. If things work out, the next leg of the adventure will continue next year. We expect to head south to the Med or perhaps north to Scotland or Scandinavia. Who knows? It’s a long time until then. Anything can happen between now and then, right?
*Traditional Irish greeting offering a hundred thousand welcomes.
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