The First Trip of the Year

This was the first trip of the year – and the weather was unusually mild for it.  We just made it the “shake-down” cruise to iron out a few things and to make our new crew member welcome.  There were four of us on board and the boat handled very nicely, putting in a good tern of speed with the wind abeem. We were planning to stay at sea all night and travel way beyond the Blaskets - but, when we were out there there was a strong wind blowing and so we decided that the wisest thing to do was to put in to Valentia for the night.

When we arrived at Valentia it was eerily quiet in the marina.  No other boat there, no electricity, no water etc.  We asked at the hotel and were told that we had arrived too early in the year. It all would be going on – but not until Easter !  No matter – we had all our food, drink and wine with us !.

I met an old friend called Eddy who I last saw 11 years ago.  So, his wife and two children were all new to me and I saw some of the alterations he has done to his house over the past period of time.  Then it was back to the boat before nightfall and have a scrumptious dinner on board. 

I’ll skip over my falling off my bunk, getting trapped on the floor and having to be pulled and pushed out at 3 in the morning ! 

The Skelligs

 

 

A Day Out from Dingle - Sunday 15th April 2012

We are now on our second trip out - calm seas and lots to look at !  We decided to motor out to An Tieracht and get the new crew member used to the boat.  Soon after setting off from Dingle we saw two Minke whales and then the common dolphins joined us.

A Common Dolphin with Breda - our regular crew and co-skipper.  She spent an hour on the fore-deck watching them.

More Basking Sharks.  There were about 25 that we saw on the south side of Great Blaket island.  As you may know, they are very tame and will swim right up to the boat.  As this one does here. Our new member of crew thought that his "ship had come in" because he saw two Minke whales, fifty common and one bottle nosed dolphin, a porpoise, and over 25 basking shark - plus puffins !   But it was very calm and we motored all the way out to An Tieracht - which we decided to leave until another day.  Don't want him to see the lot on one day !

 And here we are with the dolphins still swimming along with us.   And sunshine too and its only April!