052:10.358 N
006:35.296 W

Kilmore Quay ~ preparation day

Apologies for yesterday’s howler, an un-retrievable technical blip…..

Anyway, with eyes glued on the weather forecast for these past few days, the idea of going towards Cork and further west doesn’t look so appealing as 25 knots SW is due tomorrow. Next week’s forecast is indicating not much wind so we’re jumping on the SW at 0800 Saturday and aiming to round Land’s End.  TC is heading home.

It’s approx. 180 miles in total so no blog possible Saturday evening and we’re unsure about Sunday, but we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.

So with that decision, we have had a day of preparing TC for a 36 hour trip. Bol went up the rig today (fit young thing climbed straight up) and all looked good up there. Everything is now filled up, we’ve made sandwiches and have topped up our ‘nose bag’ of nibbly things that sits in the cockpit, oh, and the second haircut of the trip!

Nice walk eastward of Kilmore Quay today to eyeball St Patrick’s Bridge from the land, that’s the sandbank we went over on Wednesday with 3m under the keel. It transpires it was formed when a glacier which came down the Irish Sea between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago and went aground off this point. As it melted, the ice deposited a moraine, this ridge of stones and granite boulders then linked the shore with the Saltee Islands. Strong sea currents have washed away a substantial length of the land bridge, but left a shallow enough gap where boats can cross. Fascinating.

It was fun to sit on the beach today and look at the horizon where we will be sailing over tomorrow, we’ve got our heads around returning to the south coast and are looking forward to it now.