Grand Slam

Monday 30th June, Kilmore Quay to Waterford

At last a break in the weather to let us go. After a full week of strong southwesterlies, the forecast was showing only F4-5s on the nose today although increasing during the day. We made an early start and left at first light (which turned out to be just after 5am - yawn). The legacy of the strong winds though was a very deep chop in south westerly swell - bang on the nose. The tide was also against us so we were making less than 5 knots over ground. That coupled to the gale warning that then came on the radio made our minds up that Cork was not to be the target. Instead we headed off up the river Suir towards Waterford - 12 miles up river.

The wind then duly increased to 20knts, this time behind us to blow us up the river against 2 knts of adverse tide. We arrived on the Waterford pontoons around 11ish and rafted up next to Joanna Mary. Very interesting sail up river, given we were almost at low water and plenty of pilotage to do.

The shot above is the small village of Passage East on the west side of the river half way up. Seems to be the in thing these days to paint your house in pastel colours. Below is the ferry that plys itself back and forth between Passage East at the other side. The pilot book warns not to sail in front of the ferry. It's not that easy the speed it finishes loading a car and then takes off!

Waterford is an interesting little place. It took ages to find the keys to get in and out of the marina - finally found them in the City hall office (the Tower hotel is no longer doing them). Likely to be here at least two nights while the next depression blows itself out but Thursday / Friday aren't looking too bad. Not too sure however how safe it is going to be here. If the notices on the gate are anything to go by then the pontoon is in serious risk of collapsing. Surely the don't mean only 30 people can be on the pontoon at any one time?

Looking at the internet, we see Erin was leading this years North Sea race as the first boat round Sleipner A platform - with a photo showing the spinnaker up. Best of luck John.

I don't believe it

I don't believe it! That eternal Victor Meldrew quote. I don't believe it. The live music last night was Elvis. I thought he was dead. I only threw in the comment at the end of the last post as a joke to liven things up. And there was us looking for some traditional Irish music. Apparently that is it. Last time I went to live music in Ireland was back in March during a work visit to the metropolis of Mullingar. That turned out to be Elvis too. Probably the same one.

Anyway the pub was packed before he turned up and everything was bubbling and the banter excellent. Perhaps this is what they mean by craic. Once Elvis started the craicometer went down by 49 points. We left when he started singing "the green green grass of home" - that well know Elvis song(??).

Apparently the Guarda came in around quarter to one (closing time is one) and that stopped him altogether. The wind had dropped pretty significantly last night too but the midges had all buggered off to Scotland again - this time Elvis impersonator driven.

Today (Sunday), it's back up to 20-25knts again from the south west but there is about a 12 hour window from early tomorrow of slacker wind but then veering south and rising to 5's and 6's. So the plan is to make a dash out as soon as it gets light and see how far we can get. Plan A is down to Cork (around 12 hours sail) but Plan B could be to end up in Waterford if it's too rough as its only 10 miles to Hook head and then we're protected in the river up to Waterford. Joeanna Mary is off there today.

We heard from John and Sue on Ellan Vannan to say that they had a rough sail to Cork on Saturday with 25knts on the nose and a 13 hour trip with the wind on the nose all the way. They had met up with the Clipper crews and talked to Gordon who was asking after us.

Hopefully we'll have good internet access at our next stop.

Saturday 28th June, Kilmore Quay again again again

The midges are taking their case for enforced exile to Scotland to the Irish parliament. I think they have got it into their heads that the Irish are spinning their offshore windmills (of which there are thousands by the way) using cheap electricity to create this southwesterly blast. 

The wind has moderated slightly today - just touching 20knts and a few hardy boats have left to motor sail down to Cork into what looks like a rough sea. Ellan Vannin left between 8 and 9 so should make it later this evening. Tomorrow is forecast to be slightly lower and again on Monday although with the wind swinging back to the south and increasing to F5-6. Monday therefore looks a good option to do a 12 hour sail to Cork.

Friday was a slow day. Bit of local shopping, chatted to John and Sue from Ellan Vannin in the afternoon and then went up to the pub for a drink in the evening. Pam is now well and truly hooked on Guinness. Also found the local fish shop and butchers both with really cheap prices.

Saturday morning was at least dry. Peter from the Marina office came over to ask us to move into another berth as the current berth owner may be due back tonight. He helped us with ropes and then transfer 80 Litres of diesel via cans. The level of service and friendliness you get here is streets ahead of what we are used to. Maybe Edinburgh Leisure could send some of their staff on a training week here!

While we were re-parking the boat, some of the crew of White Tiger, a First 44.7 that had taken part in the round the Ireland race, came to assist and we had a chat to them. They had done the race in 99 hours and 50 minutes - some satisfaction then. They got stuck on the first night with no wind for 5 hours - (don't believe a word of it!) - which cost them dearly overall. They then had 25-35knts all the way round. At least 3 different F8 gales over the 4 days. The official web site describes the race as normally 98% boredom and 2% terror. This year it was 2% boredom and 98% terror. The White Tiger guys agreed. They had flown a spinnaker for only 5 hours and over 2/3rds of the race was downwind. I would take my hat off to them if I had one on.

They had left Dun Laoghaire after the race and were heading home to Cork but forced to stop in Kilmore Quay to get fuel as they had to motor sail all the way. They had come in under "instruments" as last night it was very foggy and no way to see the leading lines. They had then got waylaid on Joanna Mary until 4am having a wee dram or 3 to calm their nerves. They then left around 1 ish this afternoon for Cork. I watched them crashing through some serious waves from the harbour masters office. Rather them than me.

Pam and I then caught the bus into Wexford to have a look around in dry conditions. Tonight there is live music advertised up in the pub. Probably an Elvis impersonator. We'll give it a whirl.

Friday 27th June, Kilmore Quay again again

23,571 families of midges emigrated to the west of Scotland today. Even a Tuesday departure is now looking optimistic.

Thursday moring was a bright start but as always windy. Having spent a couple of days fixing boats, we had decided to get the bus over to Wexford. Three buses a day run over to Wexford which is the biggest town in the area and the county town of Wexford county. Seems logical. Apparently it is one of the oldest towns in Ireland with a big settlement from the times of the Vikings.

The bus turned up on time at 10.30 and we all piled on (about half a dozen boaties who like us were stranded in the marina). It was a half hour run through narrow twisting lanes and given it was downwind, the bus must have been touching 50mph at times. It stopped at various villages to let the locals on for their weekly shopping trip to the metropolis. At one village, on the these "locals" asked the driver to hang on while her daughter jumped off the bus, ran over to the nearby chemist and 4 minutes later emerged clutching her mum's prescription! Priceless! By the time we arrived in Wexford the bus was packed. We were dropped off near the station and went wandering.

In the shelter of the town, it felt quite warm and we had a pleasant hour wandering down the narrow main street that runs parrallel with Wexford's award winning quay. Pam spotted a shop selling Birkenstocks (for the un-informed they are shoes that cost a fortune and come in all sorts of patterns). That lightened my wallet by a significant amount. A quick visit to the tourist dis-information office where they were selling Guinness memorabilia and handing out photocopied maps of the town centre proved fruitless. We then wandered off down the award winning quay to contemplate where to eat lunch.

Pam had spotted a nice looking restaurant in the Westgate design shop (on the right on the main street as you walk south). This was a self service affair but the food very good and the portion size very American. One seafood platter would have done both of us - if I liked seafood. Recommend the place to anyone. During lunch I suggested we go and buy a paper and then sit on the award winning quay to read it. ...then someone came in covered in rain spots. Then another...then another. By the time we finished the biblical downpour had once again commenced which put paid to any further thoughts of the award winning quay. We spent the afternoon wandering round the soggy shops and ended up in the Library on the internet before catching the bus home at 6pm. The journey back was significantly slower as the wind was on the nose. At least the bus didn't have to tack and the chemist shop was closed. 

After a quick dry out on the boat, we felt it was importat to ensure Kehoe's pub had not been washed away during the day so wandered (got blown) up there for a meal and a Guiness. Pam was getting fed up paying 6 Euros a glass for red wine so switched to halves of Guinness. To be more accurate Pam was getting fed up of ME paying 6 Euros a glass. That was a result - as she declared she enjoyed it. Spain v Russia were on the telly but I saw little as we got in a conversation with Steve and Don, two guys with a big old converted wooden trawler. That turned out to be a five pint evening (conservative estimate) and we ended up back on Joeanne Mary for a wee dram. Super boat with oodles of room in addition to a bath, a washing machine and a tumble drier.

There is picture of Joeanne Mary above. They were on their way up to Poolbeg in Dublin for an old boat muster. Steve's home port was New Ross just down the coast and up the river near Waterford. The boat to the right is Moonshadow, Andres and Adrianne's boat.

Friday morning was a bit slow. The wind had slackened somewhat overnight so Moonshadow made a dramatic escape to sail over to Milford Haven. By nine ish however it had resumed it's customary F6 and Steve declined to move.

I promised some pics of the Marina. The one above shows the hammerheads with not a lot of room to get in behind Moonshadow. The one below gives a bit more of clue to what the place look like. Despite the winds it is very sheltered.

The lower photo shows how it opens up inside the pontoons. We are on the right just behind to dark boat.

More tomorrow.

Thursday 26th June, Kilmore Quay again

Global cooling continues at a brisk pace. The third gale in 6 days hit us again yesterday evening and the south westerly air flow continues unabated. Now I know why there are so many midges in Scotland. They're all blown over from Ireland. Went up to the marina office this morning and Nicky said "yu'l be 'ere till Tuesday then!" Still, there are much worse places to be stranded.

Kilmore Quay marina in a nice place to be. They've a new office block occupied by Peter and Nicky who run the marina side of the harbour. The banter was tremendous when we got in with Nicky refusing to budge on giving me a discount for 3 nights or even a week but he was willing to give me a years berthing for the price of a month. We may be forced to take it! I went up this morning and Peter was making himself a coffee. He asked "have one with me". Can you imagine walking into the Port Edgar office and being offered a coffee? Evens odds on flying pigs are more likely.

The marina itself is quite small with room for around 60 boats but it is heavily used by boats on passage round the south east tip of Ireland so the berths are big. It is a bit disconcerting coming onto the pontoons though as there doesnt seem to be much room. There are two pontoons sticking out - imagine a two pronged fork - with fingers off each pontoon. The prongs however are bent together so the gap between them at the ends is narrow but widens out significantly as you sail between them. Once you are in then you can easily turn a boat round. It's very sheltered compared to Arklow, Dun leary or Port Edgar.

You have to pay for shore power. Cards cost 5 Euros. I asked Nicky if the one from Dun Laoghaire would work. "Oh yes, but I shouldn't tell you that! Sure it'll work grand". The problem is though that Dun Laoghaire got our money for the card and Kilmore Quay will supply the lecky. I can see his point. It's all immaterial however, as there was enough credit left on the shore power box to supply South Queensferry for a week. Wi-fi is free so that is a big bonus. They have diesel here also - which is good as ours is being depleted at an astonishing rate with the heating on. Peter in the office explained the problems of filling desiel cans from his big tank in anything over a force 6 from the south west. The lid is positioned exactly to get maximum lift from the wind accelerating over the harbour wall and tank is then dragged across the road and into the blue waters of the harbour. We won't be getting any diesel 'till Tuesday then!

Wednesday afternoon was spent doing some more boat fixing and in particular the annoying leak from the window over the fridge and the increasing rapid flow of water down the keel stepped mast. Both are now in good shape. Amazing what you can do with a bit of Duct tape. That is - if you don't kick it overboard. It doesnt work as well after 15 minutes in the water. Another visit to the chandlers to get a gas refill and some other bits left my credit card account 200 Euros lighter. On the bright side, that gas bottle lasted around 3 weeks which was 2 weeks longer than the last one I got from the Bosuns locker. Methinks there may have been water in it.

Wendesday evening we entertained John and Sue from Ellan Vannin and also Adrianne and Anders who were heading the other way towards Cardiff. They had lived in Dinas Powis so it was good to talk about old times.

On Tuesday I had missed my daily ration of Guinness as it was too wet to walk up the pub. Panicking in case I died, on Wednesday evening we strolled up to the pub up the road. Surprising it wasnt raining. All the midges that hatched in Kilmore Quay that evening were quickly transported to Scotland. The pub was called Kehoes. Nice Guinness, nice food and a nice atmosphere. I can sense this place may be a competitor in the best pub in the world competition that I am privately compiling. For the Tappit Hen in Dunblane - the pressure is suddenly on. It does have a few annoying traits - associated with coming into the 21st Century - such as Football on Sky TV and Recently Invented Traditional Creamy Pisspoor Irish Ale. Patricia sorted us out with a table and then continued to move people from table to table as even bigger groups of people came in. We left after the Germany v Turkey game for a moist walk back to the boat.

Looks like we will have plenty of time to see around the place and Wexford is only a bus ride away.

Wednesday 25th June, Kilmore Quay

Is anyone actually reading this rubbish? Our daughter Ceri who is sunning herself in Singapore (although she claims she is working out there) reckons it reads more like the west coast of Scotland  restaurant guide. Must do something about it then! As it happens I picked up a book from the swap box in the Marina yesterday that I have been looking for, for ages and it has inspired me to be a bit more creative in my ramblings. So there’s an idea then. Can anyone guess the title of the book? I will try and use various lines and anecdotes from the book over the next few weeks. You’ve got until Portugal to guess. First prize is a week on the boat with us. Second prize is two weeks.

On a serious note, is anyone reading this? If you are, can you post a comment at the bottom of this page to let me know there is a world out there.

 

It’s now Wednesday lunchtime and despite the sun and blue sky Global Cooling has definitely set in. Anyone who honestly believes this planet is heating up must be on magic mushrooms or some other sensory enhancer. It’s not exactly baltic here in southern Ireland but it is meant to be summer. We got into Kilmore Quay on Monday in the one day weather window that I had spotted. Sure enough Tuesday brought more wind and by evening was blowing a good F6-7. The forecast for the week ahead is F5-6 SW (the way we want to go) each day up until at least Sunday –so it’s a good job Kilmore Quay is a nice place to be. This however probably means we will miss Gordon in Crosshaven.

I can’t believe how expensive things are over here. For “things” read “alcohol”. Pam’s wine is typically 6-7 Euros in the pub and the beer in the supermarkets is a good 50% higher than home. Ok the pound has gone down against the Euro but not that much. Maybe it will get cheaper as we get further away from Dublin. Ireland is an expensive country.

We spent Tuesday afternoon fixing boat things – like varnishing the drinks cabinet. Found the local chandlery. I always thought Bosun’s locker in Port Edgar was the pinnacle of the art of extracting as much cash from poor retired yachties with the vast range of goods on offer but this place is the bees knees (do bees have knees?). Shackles to hold the QE2 and every type of pump imaginable. Bought some gel coat repair stuff and a fender blower upper and we’ll be back today to hand over another x% of my pension to them. I’m eying up a spare bilge pump and the gas bottle ran out.

 

Went for a drink with John and Sue on Ellan Vannin early evening. Left around half past seven into a biblical deluge – oh no…they didn’t have horizontal rain did they? – now I remember why we are heading to Portugal. Spent the night listening to the wind getting back up to warp speed again. At least I got the berth right with the wind blowing from the front so the cockpit is screened. All in all though Kilmore Quay is a nice place to be. I’ll try and describe the place in the next post.

Monday 23rd June, Arklow to Kilmore Quay

Our target is to get down to somewhere not too far from Cork to pick Rob and Tom up for the Biscay crossing. The next stage of the trip however is a longish sail (9-10hrs) down round Carnsore Point to the south coast of Ireland. There are no good ports or anchorages (other than Rosslare - which is not protected to the north) and tides are 2-3 knts. The weather forecast was showing light southerly winds for monday then Easterly gales tuesday then F5-6 south westerlies for the rest of the week. Monday was therefore the day to go.

We set off at 8am Monday in light winds but were fighting 2knts of tide for the first 5 hours. The wind picked up to 12-14knts on the nose so it was just a case of motor sailing. As we got near Rosslare, the tide turned in our favour which helped us round the corner. It proved a bit lumpy with the wind over tide. Not sure what the inshore passage would be like in higher winds. Very similar to Ratray head by the look of it.

The last 2 hours of the trip was very pleasant with blue sky, 8knts on the beam and a slalom course around the 3 million lobster pots. Good job we didnt try this one in the dark.

The entrance to Kilmore Quay is portrayed in the pilot book as very tricky - similar to Dunbar but nowhere near as bad except for the rough water out by St Patrick's bridge. The marina was pretty empty so we had a choice of berths. We tied up at 5.30pm so that was a 9 1/2 hour motor sail. The rain and strong SE winds forecast for Monday night never materialised so we had really pleasant blue skies.

We met up with John and Sue from Ellan Vannin (see previous post). They were on their way down to Crosshaven in Cork to see the Clipper boats coming in. Their daughter had been the medic on the Glasgow boat and they knew Gordon Lawson. They told us the boats were due in on the 28th and would be there for a few days at least. That gives us an option to try and get there as well to go and look up Gordon.

Dave, from Arklow came down to meet us and we all went off up the pub opposite the church for a meal and the daily ration of Guinness.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week (ie right up to Sunday) is fresh to strong south westerlies so it looks like we may be here until then - still it looks a reasonable place with free wi-fi!!!!!!! - the first yet.

More to follow tomorrow with some pics of Kilmore Quay.

More on Sunday 22nd, Arklow

The forecast strong gale (F9) hit us overnight on Saturday / Sunday. We were being blown onto the pontoon but it wasn't too uncomfortable as the fetch over the river was small and there were a couple of big boats moored to the windward side of us. Joe, in Ethmara, a Malo 37 in front of us was not so lucky and lost a couple of fenders - so knocked us up at 6 am Sunday to borrow a fender a the front of our boat that wasnt being squashed. We leant him two and blew up our inflatable fenders to give us a bit more protection.

The wind was 25knts + for most of the day. Ellan Vannin, a Benny 411 from Ardrossan, tied up in the small "sheltered" marina in Arklow measured 45 knts of wind over night.

Sunday was then a bit of a rest day including shopping in the very nearby Aldi, only 2 minutes walk from the pontoon.

On Saturday night we had gone to the Raj restraunt on the river. Nice Indian food. Sunday night we went to the pub on the bridge that was very pleasant and watched the Spain v Italy game that was very boring. Got my daily ration of Guinness.

Overall I liked Arklow and was glad we found it. Nice people and good shops and the facilities (showers etc) were good. No chandlers or diesel etc and there was no water tap within 200m of the boat. One thing not so good was the colour of the water in the river. With all the rain on Saturday, the river was in flood and very brown. The colour was partly due to the raw sewarage outlet upstream under the bridge. Not very pleasant when you know that. We will need to give all the ropes and fenders a good wash down when we find the next hose pipe.

The weather forecast for Monday looks promising so the plan is to go tomorrow.

Sunday 22nd June

Well as predicted we are still in Arklow bouncing up and down on the pontoon - almost! Anyway before all that here are some of the pics we got on Saturday at Wicklow with the start of the Round Ireland race.

Around 45 boats had entered the race, the largest a 100ft racing machine, a couple of Volvo 70s but with many in the 40-50ft range.

The race is all the way round the Island - I guess 600mile +.

The boats were rafted up in two places in Wicklow harbour. These were in the sheltered bit!! When we got there we found that the race had been postponed from the scheduled 4pm Saturday start until 10am the following day due to the F8-9 winds that were forecast. The weathermen were surprised at storms of this magnitude in June.

It poured down with rain as we walked round - good job Dave had brought an umbrella.

This photo shows the inner harbour area. Normally the fishing boats are on the south pier as well.

...and then on to the outer harbour wall. Pam is under the umbrella with Dave. Top left -behind the boats- is the Wicklow yacht clubhouse. This was packed with around 300+ crew and supporters left with 24 hours to fill. The bar was doing brisk businnes so we had to try the Guinness. Going up with Dave was very good as he knew a number of people so very interesting to get some of the inside information.

Due to the high winds on Sunday morning - the forecast F9 did appear - the race was delayed until mid-day sunday and then off they went. We saw them pass Arklow from the end of the pier with Leopard, the big Farr 30M covering at least twice the distance of the rest of the fleet. Good luck to all the racers. It would be bad enough to try and do a 600+ race but in those wind conditions I take my hat off to them. Having done last years North Sea race in a F8, which we knew would take less than 2 days, to do a race which will take the slower boats aroun 5-7 days is hard work.

If you want to keep a track of the race there is a good gps tracker on the internet. Google Round Ireland race and you'll find it.

In Arklow for the day (week?)

Well it seems we made the right choice with Plan B coming into Arklow. The evening was very pleasant although still a bit of wind from the south but overnight it turned to rain and wind from the east – and when I say rain I mean rain. Pouring down. It would have been a soggy and windy night to round Carnsore point to get to Kilmore Quay.

When we got in to Arklow and moored up we saw another Ronautica, a 340, moored up to a bouy. This is the first Ronautica we have seen outside of Spain or Port Edgar. Around 11ish on Saturday, Dave McNiven, the owner turned up on Grand Slam so we invited him on board for a coffee and a chat. Turns out he is the agent for Ro’s in Ireland and knows Jock Blair well having sailed at Port Edgar in his earlier years. Dave had been due to go racing on his Ro 340 but was on the way up to Wicklow to see the start of the Round Ireland race, due to go at 4.00pm Saturday. He invited us to join him so off we went.

It was a 20 mile drive. Wicklow was rather wet with rain still bucketing down. 45 yachts had entered the race and most were in the harbour all rafted up and going up and down in the heavy swell. Some nice boats! Most over 40 feet and some very fast racing machines. 4 or 5 were missing. They were still up in Dun Laoghaire – a couple of 70 foot Volvo round the world boats plus two others! We were told that one of the Volvo’s had just done the Atlantic crossing in 5 days and was hoping to do the round Ireland in 2 ½. The record is 3 ½.

When we got there we heard the start was delayed until 10am Sunday due to the bad forecast F8-9!!! Apparently the big boats don’t like beating so made the decision for the organisers. The sailing club bar was full with all the crews having a free day on their hands. Good job we chose Plan B. The atmosphere was great with lots of people wandering round looking at the boats and the Guinness in the club was it’s usual high standard.

 So we are now back in Arklow and with the forecast on Metcheck saying severe gales likely in Irish Sea on Sunday we wont be venturing out until at least Monday. I must say though that we are impressed with Arklow and the very sociable people here – and a big thanks to Dave for taking us up to Wicklow for a “must see visit”.