A Lady trip
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 5 Oct 2009 16:26
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Sunday 6th sept
Up reasonably early, Fixed up Pauls house before
leaving Baltimore at around 11.00 hrs.
We got Mass in Goleen at midday, on our way to
Crookhaven, In crook we had a soup and sandwich in the Crookhaven Inn, before
we cleaned up the house, cut the grass, weeded the
flowerbeds, gwalked in at Ronan and Mary Kennedy's new house. lovely..
Departed for cork around 6pm and stopped for dinner
in a lovely restaurant in clonakilty,
Bed about 11pm.
Monday 7th Sept.
04.00 up early and departed for the airport to meet
Johnny and Dave,as we were off to Belgium for some meetings, Could you credit
this, Johnny brought his driving
licence instead of his passport, so could not
travel.. Not to worry, he went to school in Malla.
Things just got bloody worse from there on,
When Dave and Stephen got to Shippol Airport, yeah yeah, a bloody train driver
lightning strike,( they must have
lived in Cork for a while)... Anyway this ment we
were not going to make almost all our meetings, so having completed what we
could do, returned to Cork
a day early. Up the unions.
Tuesday 8th
08.00 up and at it, off to the office to meet Terry
O ' Sullivan for a coffee to discuss the Medeira trip, then we had Dave O'Reilly
for the rest of the day
to look over the state of the nation.
Later on, Stephen Aileen and Sarah went to the
Indian Restaurant in Douglas before retiring to early bed.
Wed 9th Sept.
Up early, a little gardening before going to the
office to meet Dave o'Rielly again for more talking. We went to the " Farm
Gate " restaurant for lunch, which was followed by a couple of meetings in
town....
later on Stephen went to crosshaven to visit Gladys
(the mother) as she lives with the brother Rom, timing is
everything, on arrival ,Rom was in the middle of making
dinner, so we all got royally fed , including the
dogs,
Bed early
Thursday 10th Sept.
Up early and off to fota golf club for a game with
Roddy Hogan Myself and Brian Archer, It was a smashing day and believe it
or not, Roddy took
all the money, He was playing way above his normal
standard and had us stunned. He has to be getting lessons, Bet that P.J. had
something to do with that.
Well done Roddy, but remember the money is only a
loan untill 1212 A.D.
After lunch , I had to go to dr. Gene Murphy for my
shots ( injections) for the trip, she did a good job.
We had dinner with Sarah and Paul before going to
bed....
Friday 11th Sept.
04.00 up early again for the airport, where we met
Terry and Collette O' Sullivan and Helen, After an uneventfull flight we
landed at Faro Airport in Portugal
and got a taxi to Lagos , where " A Lady " was
berthted. It was great to be back in the heat again.
Still problems with the aft toilet now and the
blinking Sea Fresh desalinator, ( a thing for making fresh water out of salt, or
sea water )
Despite all new parts being bought , paid for
and sent out to lagos and installed by Sopromar boatyard, we were still only
getting 50% of what the thing is supposed
to do, All done on the recommendations of " sea
fresh " company U.K.
We all went for a scottish steak that
night,
Terry and Collette kept going into the long hours ,
after the rest of us had collapsed into our bunks, But then ,they are only
children in comparison to the rest of us.
lots and lots of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Saturday 12th
up early enough, we went to sea just to prove the "
Sea Fresh " plant was not working properly,
We checked over the whole boat , making sure that
all requests were carried out , and generally, they were, . In fact the boat
looked Beautifull ,having been polished
( except they polished off the R.C.Y.C. flag on the
transome) dumbells... Anyway we were leaving for Madeira tomorrow,
come hell or highwater....
When we got the boat back to her proper berth, we
went across the road to the local supermarket for provisions . Again it has to
be said, the cost
of food anywhere down here ( and especially places
like the Azores and Spain ) is so.so. much less than Ireland, ........... but
more than that, Their fruit and
veg are so feckin fresh in comparrison to
ours. Where are we going wrong ?????
We went to the Indian restaurant that night.
everyone excited about tomorrows trip.
early bunks.....ZZZZZZZZZZ
Sunday 13th
Up early, another beautifull day and looks like a
nice N.N.W. breeze,
09.00 hrs ,we slipped off the marina, having
settled up the accounts, ( not a cheep marina )
outside as we headed southwest, we were surrounded
with hundreds of dolfins, they were very interested in talking to Terry. maybe
they wanted a smoke
or just a chat about " Toty Joe " or Collette's "
Toty Joe " special.
We wre flaking along, doing 8 / 9 knots.. this is
what sailing is all about (well supposed to be ) The Skipper cooked roast
chicken , roast potatoes, creamed spuds
veg etc for dinner , we skipped the alchacol for a
change.......
we took turns in the watches, but no one was
rushing to the bunk as it was a beautifull night..
Monday 14th .
Aileens birthday started with another beautifull
day, mind, poor old Helen was not feeling well at all, so we had to look after
her while she got used to mmmm
getting sick, poor thing,
The 3 stages of
seasickness.........FIRST................ oh ! I am going to get sick.
SECOND .......... oh oh oh ! I am going to
die..
THIRD
............... oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ! I am not going to
die....
09.00 hrs we had sailed with no engine 185
miles
the wind was blowing about 25 / 28 knots, and we
were flying along on a close fetch with 2 reef's in the main and one in the
yankee plus the staysail.
Fantastic sailing.
again took turns with the night watch,
poor Collette gave up the fags for 3 days as going
aft for a smoke was not an option..
The stars, the milkey way, the plough, the seven
sisters, were twinkiling there all night, the sae's were big enough but on a
good angle to the boat
so we never slowed down, We saw very little
shipping traffic.
Tuesday 15th September
09.00 hrs In 48 hours we had sailed 420
nautical miles. great going. well we thought so anyway...
Helen was feeling much , much ,
better,
We saw land at about 12.00 hrs, its always great to
see land after a long journey .. the whole trip was about 480
miles.
We arrived in Ponto Santo 16.30 hrs, among a
bit of confusion over which island was which , well done Terry,
We anchored off the lovely beech near the harbour
entrance,
We lowered the rib and went ashore to stretch the
legs,
we met Fergus Quinlan and kate while having a beer
in the local,
NOW we ate on board and Collette cooked the , now
famous TOTIE JOE special, a delicious creamey chicken dish with rice. lots
of wine and too
many fags.. cough, cough, cough.
Off to an earley
bunk.............................zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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