We departed at 07:00 and with a good ebb tide pushing us out of Cork Harbour, we passed Roches Pt lighthouse at 07:30. Motoring, as not enough wind to sail.
After passing Power Head, we had to avoid several salmon nets – the salmon fishing season had obviously begun in earnest.
By 09:30 we had passed Ballycotton lighthouse, which is a very distinctive black colour, and another two salmon nets at the Smiths. Wind 3kn from astern and overcast.
Ballycotton
Lighthouse (from Irish Lighthouses)
At 12:15 we were 3nm S of Mine Head. The wind was 5kn from astern and we had the genoa poled out - wrong crew for the spinnaker!
The initial plan to go back via different ports began to evaporate and instead of heading for Dunmore East, we pushed on for Kilmore Quay, because of a worsening forecast and also Dunmore East would have meant a very early start the next day to catch the tides correctly around Carnsore Point.
At 16:30 we passed Hook Head and by 19:00 we were safely tied up in Kilmore Quay after a long day. Distance covered 69nm.
Kilmore Quay was again packed with boats and the harbour master (forgiving us for our previous indiscretion with the marina key) had to pack the boats in like sardines. We were squeezed in between two boats and reversing into the space needed plenty of manual intervention with ropes and fenders. One of the boats we berthed alongside was Pip, see later.