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Mon 8^th July

Yesterday’s strong winds were moderating, so we decided to leave. However we had a few chores to do first. The empty gas cylinder needed to be refilled and the skipper needed to get a load of laundry washed and dried.

As nothing opens too early on a Monday, it was midday before we finally got away. We motored out past Charles Fort and were met with our first blast of wind. However we decided to continue on engine only to the Old Head of Kinsale, until we sussed out what the weather was doing around the headland.

At 13:40 we rounded the Old Head of Kinsale – very big ugly seas! What a start - green faces all round for the new crew! They had a new realisation …………..

So they started scheming an escape plan to get back to home comforts – bus to Cork, train to Belfast …….

Initially we had planned to go to Glandore, but with the wind on the nose and a very uncomfortable sea, we decided to alter course for Courtmacsherry, being a closer port of refuge, and to allow the stomachs to settle.

Hence we changed course for Black Tom buoy and then to Wood Pt light, at the entrance to Courtmacsherry Harbour – which is really a river estuary. We had difficulty finding suitably deep water over the sand bar into the river – the low depth alarm was getting overly excited beeping loudly, raising the crew’s stress levels. However once we got near to the boats anchored further up the river we were back in deeper water again. The ICC Sailing Directions mentioned that there were visitor moorings available, but as we had been marina hopping down the coast, we hadn’t seen any visitor moorings and didn’t know what we were really looking for. A safety boat shepherding a fleet of Toppers advised us that there were no visitor moorings any longer at Courtmacsherry but they had a new pontoon upstream of the pier that we could tie up to.

We followed the line of anchored boats up past the harbour to the pontoon and had to do a nifty 180 deg turn to edge into the pontoon against the strong incoming tidal stream. By 15:30 we were safely moored alongside, with the help of one of the local lifeboat crew. Distance travelled 16nm.

The boys disappeared ashore to stretch their legs and to get an ice-cream to settle their stomachs. They continued their mutinous rumblings about getting back to Bangor – what are the bus times to Cork, and the train to Dublin? This went on for the next two weeks.

We had dinner at the hotel and then retired to the boat ….and yes – out came the cards.

Later that evening, the local lifeboat went out for an exercise and tied up outside us upon their return, whilst they refuelled. The crew trampled back and forth over the deck, disturbing her ladyship in the forward cabin. The skipper snored gently on, oblivious to the commotion.

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