Dingle: we are here :-)
Yuva
Jim & Peri Holden
Sat 6 Aug 2016 18:58
posted by: Jim
date and local time (Irish Summer Time): Saturday 6 August 2016 19:57
Six days and nights at sea after leaving Terceira in the Azores, today at noon we arrived in Dingle in Ireland.
The wind filled in last night shortly before 11pm, so we had a great sail on the final run in last night and this morning. The only issue was that for the first time after eight seasons of sailing Yuva I managed to create a serious jam of the last bit of our in-mast furling mainsail as I unfurled it last night. With good suggestions and help from Grethe and Skip we managed to unfurl it fully in the end, after gybing (Skip’s suggestion) and working the vang (Grethe’s suggestion) plus a lot of in/out movement of the furling mechanism and aggressive use of the outhaul on my part. Whew, getting it freed up was a huge relief!
This morning the wind built to a nice F5. As we sailed into Dingle Bay we contacted the harbourmaster who had earlier reserved a marina berth for us, and he confirmed that despite everyone in the area piling into the marina to shelter from the F8 gale that is forecast for tonight and perhaps the weekend, he had a nice hammerhead berth set aside for us. Indeed the timing was good, as we were told that the Irish customs cutter that had been on our berth was just then leaving.
As we neared the entrance to Dingle under sail, the customs cutter came out at speed and, after pausing near us, launched a RIB with five officers on board. The RIB approached us and flagged us down. It appears that there is a lot of drug smuggling into Ireland by sea, and sometimes by yacht, so Customs felt that they needed to have a look at us, given that we were coming from part way across the Atlantic. We got the sails in and the engine on and were boarded by four of the officers. Two of the officers went below with Peri to look around and ask questions, and the other two remained with me for further questions and documentation. After a while, they seemed convinced that we were genuine, so we took the opportunity to ask for Dingle restaurant/pub recommendations, etc. It was all very friendly in the end, and we then proceeded into the marina and were all secured on the hammerhead at noon, just in time for lunch ashore at Ashe’s Seafood Restaurant.
After a nice lunch in town with pints of Guinness, plus a touch of shopping, making of dinner reservations, etc, we cleaned the boat up on deck and below, and after hot showers we are now contemplating a touch of cocktail hour before dinner ashore at Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant.
I should mention that on our way into Dingle Bay today, we had close-up encounters with many dolphins playing in the waves, as well as a close-up whale sighting. And after the customs team left us, right at the entrance to Dingle harbour we got a close-up view of Fungie, the famous solitary dolphin who has been living in Dingle harbour since 1984.
We are still getting to know our way around Dingle, but there seem to be plenty of good restaurants, as well as pubs with music and some nice shops. There are quite a lot of tourists here, but there also seem to be nice local establishments that are not on the tour bus circuit!
Greetings as always to our followers ashore. All aboard are well, as is the boat :-)
S/Y Yuva