|
Around Ireland Without a Fridge*.
(2006, June and on...)
(*normally a lack of fridge for
northern waters would not be an issue, but with the unusually scorching
weather we had it was a challenge to keep our butter solid! have you read:
“Around Ireland With A Fridge”?)
June 1st was my first day off after working a stint for Shell
Expro in Aberdeen. As
Sarah’s projects were still not finished, I made use of the new-found
freedom to collect an old Aprilia
Pegaso (motorbike) from NL, both as a break from boat work and a good excuse
to see some friends! But then Siobhan took over again and a few weeks were
spent with maintenance and small repairs. The new sails were a couple of
weeks late so no need to rush, and the weather was fantastic (sunny and warm
which is extremely rare in Scotland!)
Summer solstice came and went with a wee visit to the “Rock Ness”
festival by power boat with Robin, and then on June 29th we left Inverness
for Loch Ness!
The new main-sail lasted roughly 30 minutes
in the admittedly gusty winds of the loch before crashing down, by which time
we were approaching our gorgeously peaceful anchorage for the night near
Drumnadrochit anyway.... so we folded the new sail into its bag, put the old
one back on, and celebrated our first anchorage for the year with a wee glass
of champagne. As each sail weighs in at 80kg or so, we figured we deserved
champagne for that as well!
The Caledonian Canal (*60 miles from
Inverness on the east coast to Corpach by Ft.William on the west coast),
taken at a leisurely pace and in summer this time, was truly fantastic: breathtaking
scenery, gorgeous hikes (Loch Oich & Ben Tee score max points), peaceful (and
this is the busy season), friendly lock keepers, good pubs & restaurants,
warm & sunny weather! Out of the canal at Corpach, Siobhan into salt
water after all those months of waiting, and on to Tobermory on the Isle of
Mull: coastline cliff walks to be recommended, fantastic views, warm &
sunny weather (!), good food and a bottle of good “Iona” whisky
to be had...
July 7th On to Oban to pick up Sarah’s
sister Helen for a week, and a bottle of my favourite “Oban” whisky
hopefully for a bit longer... As Helen is new to sailing (and to pretty much
any other outdoor pursuit) we start off with an easy sail through the
notorious Sound of Luing to Craobh Haven which conveniently allows us to
watch the world cup finals in a pub, access the internet, and me to reminisce
a bit in what was my sailing base 10 years ago... I don’t recall ever
having set foot in either the pub or the showers though surely the showers I
must have?!?! Interesting sailing days back then, with a wee low-maintenance
boat...
A few days later we’re on Islay
sampling whisky at the Bowmore distillery and accidentally end up with a
bottle or two... about time to leave Scotland before this theme gets out of
hand!
So away we go for the 30 mile hop to
Ballycastle in Northern
Ireland, near Rathlin Island. A
slow sunny sail past shags & cormorants, puffins and razor-bills, and
various other marine wildlife ends with some record-breakingly tight
manouvering in a small busy harbour to get to the one spot where we fit and
will barely touch bottom when the tide goes out... and as it’s sand,
and low water is at 03:00, I assume no-one will notice whether we lift the
pontoon a few inches as long as we drop it back afterwards. A couple of
friendly and persistent kids with cute and extremely hard-to-understand
accents end up having a look around Siobhan, and mere minutes after they rush
off to fetch their “sister”, they return with another four kids
including one girl with a wee boy in a pram. Since the age difference between
“sister” and the wee one appears only 8 or 9 years we agree to
assume she’s not the mother...
Helen leaves again (too much of a good
thing can be hard to handle, apparently), and we take a day to go to the
Giant’s Causeway, a world renowned (?) geological feature of
geometrical basalt towers, and it is indeed spectacular. We walk there along
a fantastic cliff path (2 hours), look around (2 hours) and then take the
last bus back. The female driver drops everyone off at their respective
houses & cars in a lovely display of personal closeness, for want of a
better word. Welcome to Ireland.
15th Over to Rathlin Island, and this is
fantastic: lovely, friendly (apart from an extraordinarily grumpy tourist
office attendant who we do not manage to persuade to supply any information
to us whatsoever) and a couple of hours walking away: an amazing bird
observatory on a cliff complete with telescopes set up for visitors so you
can watch literally tens of thousands of birds nesting on cliffs and ledges! Hundreds
of puffins (including an albino!) and thousands of the other various birds we
sailed past a few days earlier! It always amazes me that they find ledges to
sit on, and when looked at from close up it turns out that a lot of them
actually lean towards the cliff, and cannot turn without falling off. Where
they park their eggs? Some mysteries must remain. Also witnessed the first
guillemot chick of the year “swim” out to sea accompanied by mum,
where it will not only learn to swim (!) but also to fly (hopefully) during
the next few years.
19th Onwards to Aran Island. A
picturesque short sail from Gola island which is a nice if rather bleak 90%
deserted island Aran by contrast starts off just slightly over-populated, and
whether or not this is where the famous Aran sweaters come from we never find
out, for they barely sell ice-cream and the temperature is in the 30’s!
But this is the good part. As we walk up one of the smaller roads which
doubles as a scenic walking route, it becomes clear that where the
potentially beautiful countryside begins, so do randomly scattered waste
dumps, illegal soil excavations and (probably also illegal) peat “harvesting”.
The highest hill lends a fantastic panoramic view of this mix of beauty,
strip-harvesting and junk, and just to show there really is a theme going on
the second highest hill of the island, beautifully framed by the Atlantic in the
distance, also features a scrap yard
on its crest. We turn back just as the sky senses our mood and lets her tears
gently fall on us.
-There’s this strange mix of
impressions in Ireland so far. Coastline almost as spectacular as Scotland, but much more populated. And the continuous sun, warmth and
slight haze don’t match the normal associations of atmosphere I have
with this landscape. Great beaches, bays and anchorages, but in amongst all
the houses no villages?! Is the Celtic Tiger’s main achievement that
individuals have the funds to build breeze-block houses and extensions,
whilst it hasn’t instilled them with the sense of pride required to
restore the existing stone ones, or invest in town centres? Is this TV taking
over from the pub as “social” focus?
20th Another lovely day, and we head across
Donegal Bay to Eris Head, to make some southing. Light winds, some
motoring, and a near run-in at dusk (22:00) with a salmon
fisherman laying nets & floats. Now is the season when they lay their
floating nets across the routes of the migrating salmon, who follow the coast
until they smell the stream of their birth and dive into fresh water. Though
the nets are relatively small –the boats are 2-man jobs– they
still form quite a hazard for us as they’re marked with a small float
on one end only... Even nearer dark (23:00) sees us anchored in
a lovely river mouth under the watchful eye and shelter of the lighthouse of
Gubacashel.
22nd Saturday, following closely upon the
news that a cousin of mine died, the weather has changed dramatically; there
is no safe place to leave the boat behind to attend a funeral. Wind and rain
from the south, more what I’d expected of Ireland when we set off, but not very convenient now. We move over to
the west side of the bay as the wind turns, which gives us an enjoyable hour
of sailing before we hole up again. Walking up to the nearest cashpoint -8 miles
as it turns out- we pass a surprisingly rare treasure in the scenic irish
landscape: a pub. We duly enter, straight into a raucous and friendly crowd
speaking words distinguishable as english but with an accent which makes it
all gaelic to us anyway, with shinty (a very irish sport: the tools of hockey
with the rules of rugby) on TV, and we settle for a pint of local brew while
we contemplate how to make ourselves understood to ask for a “taxi”.
This turns out to be easier than we thought, and an ex-seaman (called Pat,
predictably) turns up in an old car to drop us off at a cash point with some
advice on the best local food which we follow up. He picks us up again later
and is so enthused by the view of Siobhan anchored in the distance that we
almost invite him over for a wee dram but it’s windy and wet, he’s
driving, and we’ll need to ferry him back in this weather too. Meanwhile
we learned a thing or two about how salmon fishermen lay their nets which may
help us avoid them later.
go
back
|
