53:23.35 N, 005:03.96 W

 

We left Bangor about 8am and took the fair tide through the Donaghadee Sound and away south.

 

Bangor at dawn on a fine morning after the gale

 

An uneventful and pleasant day moving slowly south in light winds mostly from the south, sometimes sailing and sometimes motor-sailing until around 1am when motor-sailing about 10 miles off Lambay Island there was a clunk and then we gradually slowed down: caught on a lobster pot! We looked around the boat with a torch but could see nothing in the cloudy water, tried turning off the engine and sailing only, and then motoring against the way we'd come, until eventually after about half an hour the rope slid off (or snapped) with a jerk and we were free. The propeller and transmission vibrated violently if we put the revs above 1400, but at that rather slow speed we limped towards the coast and an anchorage between Ireland's Eye and the mainland, which we reached around 2:30.

 

After a peaceful night and the dawn of what promised - and turned out to be - an unseasonably fine and warm day we considered the problem of freeing the rope or whatever it was from the prop. But the tide was running past so fast that it wasn't practical to dive, despite Fe getting into her wetsuit, so we radioed to Howth marina to ask if they had a marina berth for us, which they did. We then admitted that we might have some difficulties manoeuvring and would be a bit slow, and they very helpfully offered to send out a launch to assist us. We didn't need it but were grateful for the offer.

 

Ready to go back in!

 

Tied up in the marina it turned out to be the last major racing day of the season, and the place was humming with activity and boats preparing to race and being scrubbed down etc. Fe had another go with the dive kit we have on board, but because she's already been in an hour or so earlier rapidly became too cold to continue. Just as we were considering what to do about this, a diver in a full dry-suit bobbed up at Awelina's stern! James asked him if he fancied looking at our prop, and a deal was rapidly agreed. After what seemed an age he re-surfaced with miles of cheap and nasty floating rope of the type fishermen use.

 

Some of that rope

 

What luck that he was there! Indeed everyone from Howth YC, whose private marina this is was s helpful and welcoming as possible, so we arranged to leave Awelina there for a week or two, and caught the next day’s direct flight home to Cambridge (CityJet)  from Dublin airport.

 

Howth YC Marina looking from the outer breakwater