Our one month’s experience in Ireland was not worth missing.  As said before the weather was not on our side and for the first two weeks we were diving in and out of gales. The sailing at times was challenging yet rewarding. The coastline was dramatic and the vegetation wild, lush, green and an amazing abundance of fuchsias!

The Irish folk are great and they are always willing to have a chat.  In particular, Mary, the barmaid in Ma Murphys’s  in Bantry Bay was a delight to talk to and I think given the chance would have loved to have come sailing with us.

The challenge of finding places to dump your rubbish, lack of chandelers, no mobile connectivity in some places and planning where to get fuel and water would faze many of us who are used to the luxurious facilities of the South Coast, but somehow this made things all the more interesting and perhaps it also gave us an incite into the type of issues we will encounter as we visit other parts of the world.

Although sad to leave Ireland, the call of warmer climes was great and I must say the warm weather in La Coruna is now indulging us.

The following pictures are just a few of some of the fond memories (which are not on the previous blog pages). 

Nimue catching up Dizzy Di  with 2 reefs on the way to Bear Island

Sad.......all this walking just to get a mobile phone signal

Lawrence Cove Marina (Bear Island)

What a find on the way to visit Garnish Island by Dinghy (seal and heron)

How about this for a Kerrygold advert (note how green everything is)

 At last a picture of me (thanks Keith and Michael's favorite)