Monday 27th May:  Just occasionally you may catch me complaining about 04:00 hour starts and unfavourable winds.  But, to set the balance straighter, our passage from Malahide to Ardglass started at 11:00 in the morning, with the favourable tide, and was 50 miles downwind all the way.  Yes, it does happen. Goosewinged Ardglass is a sweet little place, perhaps a little down at heel, but the broken pontoon has been replaced with a lovely new one and there is only a small hole now, where the walkway lands, and that is well covered with a piece of plate, so there is no danger of falling through.  A viking vessel (GRP version) attests to past marauders. Ardglass Marina - New Pontoon The next day we carried on Northwards, wind astern and then veering abeam, and we steered towards Bangor.  A larger yacht caught us up as we ran downwind in the initially confused seas but once we came onto a reach we managed to hold them off, all the way to Copeland Island, just south of...

Friday 24th May: After sitting out the windy weather in Greystones, we pushed on northwards through waterways congested with shipping, between shallow banks and avoiding the Traffic Separation Schemes in Dublin Bay.  We soon found ourselves reefing as the wind rose and we beat to windward. This is the Irish home of serious yacht racing and I was very glad that the local race was in another part of the course as we passed one of their racing marks close to the shallow entry channel for Malahide. We dropped sails and motored up the channel to find a place to moor in the Marina. Rapport snug in Malahide Marina It was from here that we were going to be collected to spend a couple of nights at the home of Ukrainian Alex and Oksana, the parents of our daughter-in-law, Olena (recently married to son, Mike). View from Malahide towards the narrow entry channel between sandy beaches We were duly collected and immersed in Ukrainian culture, starting with home-made Vareniki potato dumplings. ...

Kilmore Quay was lovely, if a little haphazard in layout.  It's also a great place for fish and chips, right by the marina.  The portions were huge however, with two pieces of fish each, and we had to keep half for future lunch!  Perhaps we were given the wrong order? Fish & Chips - Second Serving for Two The entrance to Kilmore Quay is past a long, shallow bank, the tide swirling over.  It looks quite dramatic but the pilotage is not difficult, with some care.  St Patrick's Bridge buoys mark the safe passage to the East and we came and went that way. It's strange how, even though the tides get nearly an hour later each day, our sailing time always seems to be very early.  The tides around here move at a reasonable speed, so it's important to make the best of them.  Our departure, on Monday 20th May, involved getting up at 03:30 for a 04:00 start.  We also had a ridge of high pressure giving us a light NE wind, fading later, so we tacked aroun...

As evening fell on Friday 17th May and with the weather forecast indicating a change to strong northerly winds, we took Rapport round the E side of Skomer, through Jack Sound to anchor in South Haven on the opposite side of the island. Skomer North Haven (LHS) and South Haven (RHS) Then we settled down for the night, knowing that we had an early start the following day.   Suddenly, at about 3am, we heard thumps against the rigging followed by bumps onto the deck.  We tore ourselves out of our bunk and saw that we were enclosed by a thick fog and the thumps and bumps were the sounds of numerous unfortunate birds bouncing off our rigging and landing onto the deck.  We could see faint outlines of birds flying chaotically around the boat and did not want to be flown into ourselves, so went below to work this out.  We were not sure how badly hurt the birds were and desperately wanted to stop this happening.  We already had our all-round white anchor light showin...

Skomer Island - Bird Paradise (Except for some of the Shearwaters) Rapport in North Haven, Skomer Island The island name harks back to Viking times but all was peaceful for us.  Around us in North Haven, where we lay at our buoy, were rafts of birds, mainly Puffins.  With over 40,000 breeding pairs on the island, this might not be surprising.  Overhead were clouds more birds, Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes and Fulmars.  We rowed ashore, arriving a bit early as usual (the island opens to visitors at 10:00 hrs), and were greeted by the friendly wardens, who took our money and told us to keep to the paths and to be nice to the birds. Weather:  Sunny with cool breeze, perfect for walking round the island. Visibility:  Clear and beautiful, excepting one short patch of sea fog. Wardens and visitors:  Happy and friendly. We also knew that rats were not welcome and left ours on board. Ship's Rat Skomer is rocky and rugged.  Past attempts at farming (t...

Tuesday was still too windy for our liking, so we decided to remain in the marina at Falmouth for another day.   Having completed our chores the day before, we felt free to take a walk to look at the white horses in the bay north of the town.   Then we set off along the coast towards Pendennis Point until a heavy rain shower made us choose a path that led upwards through the sheltering trees. As we emerged from the top of the path, we found ourselves at the entrance gate to Pendennis Castle which is an English Heritage property.   Having paid their entry fee, we made our way into this impressive site and had a very interesting time exploring their many buildings ranging from Henry VIII castle to the Half Moon Battery that was used to keep the Luftwaffe and the German E-Boats out of Falmouth during WWII. View out from the battlements of Pendennis Castle Doug managed to have a personal guided tour of the full range of artillery in one part of the castle grounds as a vo...

The 10th of May was very busy for us as we prepared the house to be left and gathered everything we would need for the voyage.  Doug decided to add another thing to our "to-do list" as he had organised the handing over of our dinghy, Tamar Fortune to its new owner :)  We also needed to say goodbye to Cody Sailing Club, who we'd been hosting on their Weir Quay dinghy camp.  Oh and our much-needed Shetland charts arrived at lunchtime! Rapport on her Weir Quay Mooring Suffice to say, we were pretty tired by the time we had loaded everything on board and packed it away that evening.  Rosie had brought so much food that we had to be pretty ingenious to find enough spaces to stow it all!  As Doug said "it was lucky that the kitchen sink had been bolted down"! We'd only recently fitted the sails as we'd had to wait for good weather earlier in the week to have our mast down and the rigging replaced by Allspars in Plymouth, ready for this trip. But we were well r...