My brother in law Alan joined me in Peel last night, and it was an early start to get out of Peel Marina before the sill closed at 0600. This sailing lark is fine except for the early mornings ! We slipped lines at 0530 and where on our way out of Peel, past the old castle, at 0600, headed for Ardglass, approx 32 miles west in N Ireland.

 

Peel Marina is a great refuge if the weather turns bad , and many thanks to the staff there, and our friends Michael and Cathy who live in Peel, and kept an eye on Moondog for a couple of weeks.

 

We had a strange problem with the plotter on the evening before departure. It simply would not turn on, and I was resigned to using the back up hand held unit, and also developed bad feelings towards Raymarine......Then I was woken in the ( short ) night by a persistent beeping coming from the still blank and dead plotter. I pressed the power button , and voila, a fully functioning plotter with its AIS alarm beeping because someone in the Marina had left their AIS transmitting and the plotter proximity alarm was sounding. If anyone reading this has the faintest idea what was going on let me know. No further problems, so fingers crossed for the rest of the trip.

 

The trip to Ardglass was uneventful, but was motorsailing all the way into a wind at times dead on the nose, but we had a bit of a sail as we approached Ardglass. F3 all the way, with showers. Normal sailing gods service applied as we entered Ardglass, and the heavens opened so that we could get wet through getting ready to moor up, but we were soon tied up safely in a delightful little sheltered Marina, passing some seals basking on just submerged rocks.....looked like the seal equivalent of walking on water.. And of course the sun then came out !

 

Forecast looks good for tomorrow, and we are off to Carlingford hopefully, and this time it will be an 0700 start, so the mornings are getting better !

 

 

 

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Brian Whitefoot

 

Mob (44) 07721 849213