Leaving England and Wales behind for the moment

 It felt quite something to sail away from mainland Britain to Ireland - I can’t quite believe how far we have come in a few weeks.  The passage from Neyland to Kilmore Quay in Ireland went well and we arrived earlier than we expected at about 8.00 this morning. In fact we had to slow down for the last few miles as we didn’t want to negotiate the variety of rocks in the dark.  Once again we were surrounded by wonderful porpoises who seemed to be playing on our bow wave.   We have all felt a bit tired today, following the night sail but for all of us it is ‘happy tired’.  At lunch time we had crab rolls - all agreed they were fabulous and then as an even more special treat, we have a seal in the harbour.  

We were asked to move our boat to another berth and this turned out to be a very good thing.  For some days we have been puzzled that our jib furling line was now quite short and that a length seemed to have disappeared.  Today we say what had happened - a large amount of our line was wrapped around our propellor. We borrowed a tender and Roger was able to hook the line with a boat hook.  I say ‘we’ - I was in fact having a nap at the time. 

Tomorrow we leave here at 5.30 am to catch a favourable tide to help us on our way to our next destination, which is Arklow, further north up the Irish Coast. Then on Thursday or Friday we reach Dublin.  

One of our number, Barbara, a remarkable lady who sails single handed, had a nasty experience about five miles off from Kilmore Quay.  She lost all her electrics, including her VHF radio, so was without any navigational aids in very tricky waters.  She wisely called the Lifeboat who were tremendous and towed her to safety.  She said she got here rather quicker than she would have otherwise!  Her electrics were fixed in a few minutes so she is all set to sail on to Arklow with the rest of us. 

Neyland to Kilgore Quay        85.1 nms