Another warm day…. even Ireland is experiencing the heat wave and its attendant anticyclone…. although Monday was a very windy day… Force 4 to 5 from the North East.
After a first, big full Irish breakfast at the local seaside cafe… where I did not ask for English Mustard… just mustard!! We toured the little town… just happened to come upon a massive Chandlery… like two Force 4’s put together… but one of the every few where I have left without buying a single thing!!
Photo above,,, the harbour at Kilmore Quay in Ireland. Centre yacht is the Hallberg Rassey 37 belonging to Eric and Margaret, rafted up to Poli Poli on the inside. You can just see our dinghy on the back.
We noted that many of the houses in Kilmore were thatched…. later that evening, in the pub, I looked at some old historical photos from the 1950’s which indicated that the vast majority of houses were thatched then. A pleasant little place, very neat and tidy…lots of holiday makers, and some brave souls swimming in the Irish Sea off the very clean town beach.
The afternoon was taken up with our newly found German friends Margaret and Eric ( both 82 )… sitting in their saloon on Altrhein ( Hallberg Rassey 37 )…. drinking beer and wine ( they come from Mainz and had lots of bottles of the local Rhine brew Reisling )…and looking at charts, pilot books, and discussing such matters as Brexit, Germany’s exit from the World Cup, and all manner of subjects in a jolly, friendly and humorous way.
The star show of the day was the very sudden arrival of a huge, brand new looking Southerly 47… a massive boat registered in Jersey. This appeared in the harbour and realising that there was no where to berth, did all sorts of circles with lots of bow thruster noises…. and sorties here there and everywhere to see if he could find a suitable berth.
A couple of gentleman indicated to him that there was a single vacant berth and offered help on the pontoons… for a while the southerly 47 skipper took no notice…. and intent on doing his own thing, nearly ran the boat aground by going behind the main pontoons into the shallows. All manner of people were shouting at him… including myself… I was trying to say that if he reversed in he would make the empty berth. The skipper/owner on the helm ignored everybody.
The wind at this stage had increased to about 25 knots and was blowing the Southerly 47 all over the place. The skipper finally did reverse down the channel…. and then for some inexplicable reason spun the boat 360 degrees missing the transom of Poli Poli by inches. He had decided bow first into the berth…. the crew on board were disorganised… they had already lost an expensive looking large fender over the side… and they did not seem to know what lines to get ready.
The upshot of this was that Mike had to leap onto a motorboat next to where the Southerly 47 was coming in at a rate of knots…. and fend it off from hitting the bow of the motorboat. Very difficult to push away a boat weighing maybe 17 tons!! So they touched. At least six guys… including the 82 year old Eric helped pull the 47 into the berth which was not easy! We did not hear a “thankyou”. Not all Southerly owners are like this…. I hope!
We retreated to the pub where we watched Belgium come back from two goals down to beat Japan 3-2 in the very last minute. The pub audience mainly local Irish folk seemed to support the Belgians. Poor old Japan, they “played out of their skins” but an elementary mistake at the end cost them dear.
We retired early to bed, after arranging our departure at 7am the next morning with Margaret and Eric…. as they would have to get up too… being rafted up on our outside. They would have to move their boat out first, then we would leave the berth and exit the harbour. They would then have our berth on the pontoon…. and go back to bed! Of course!
Toby's sailing boat Poli Poli 