We didn’t quite have the start we’d planned to our trip, and due to a family situation, I spent the first week of our planned trip at home with my family, while Marty did all the final jobs, and got the boat ready to leave.
I flew back to Dublin on the evening of 29th July, and we set off from Greystones at 6am on the morning of the 30th. We left the harbour, and were met with a 30 knot northerly breeze, and big waves. We had originally intended to sail the 14ish hours to Dunmore East, but in light of the conditions, we decided to sail the slightly shorter trip to Kilmore Quay, and stop there for the night. After a couple of hours, and with very little sail up, we settled into the swing of things, and finally managed to get some food into us. We reached Kilmore Quay around 5pm that evening, and after a quick ice cream pit stop, we settled in for the night, with another early start planned for the following day.
The following morning, we left Kilmore Quay in a light breeze, to make the short passage to Dunmore East. We arrived in glorious sunshine, and anchored off the beach for the afternoon. Ross, Lynda and the girls arrived that afternoon, and we swam, paddleboarded and ate more ice cream.
We spent the next few days making a couple more hops down the east coast, slowly making our way to Schull, where we planned to stay for a week. After Dunmore, we stopped in Kinsale and Glandore, where we spent a very bumpy night, before our final windy sail into Schull. Safely on our mooring in Schull harbour, we then spent the week sailing and socialising during the now infamous “Calves Week regatta. We enjoyed the week racing on the mighty Rockabill VI, and had a thoroughly enjoyable few days. I was blown away by the kindness and generosity shown to us over the last few days – from hot showers (and hair dryers!), the offer of a bed ashore for a wet and windy night, and the loan of a car to do all our provisioning, we were very grateful for all the help and support from our friends – thank you all!
We spent the day on Friday preparing for our first long passage on Éalú – our planned departure for La Coruna in the north west of Spain was Monday 12th. We filled up with water and diesel, stocked up the boat with enough food for three people to last 6 days, and downloaded charts and weather forecasts for the coming days so that we could finalise our passage plan and routing. We’re very fortunate to have a third crew member joining us for the crossing to La Coruna, so we were looking forward to Neilo arriving on Sunday night. The weather forecast looks good for the week, and we were aiming to complete the 500 mile trip in approximately 5 days.
In the meantime, we’ve loaded up on podcasts, books for the kindle and movies for the ipad before we go!
Until next time…..
R&M xx
Sailing Éalú 