Friday.  Showered on a barge at our end of the pontoons, thus saving a 400m walk to the main facilities, then used the excellent laundry facilities in the marina, and took the DART into Dublin for lunch (indifferent meal from a bad choice of pub in Temple Bar), then shopping etc.  We would have liked to go  to the Abbey Theatre but it was fully booked, so the evening's entertainment was a visit to the cinema for Prometheus in 3D: Cate voted it a good movie, despite being stressed throughout and just avoiding screaming during the goriest bits! 

Saturday.  We had spotted in a local paper that this Bank Holiday weekend there was a music festival with one of Benj's favourite bands - Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - playing, as well as better known groups such as Left Field (and lesser known ones like Holy Fuck) so we called Ticketmaster and booked!  A combination of DART, tram and a very long walk got us to Kilmainham Royal Hospital grounds, where we enjoyed a good  aftenoon's fun and music despite increasing drizzle.  HBE were absolutely awesome, with the extra treat of meeting the band and chatting in the Press tent. Naturally we got the mandatory photos and had their new CD signed, and after satisfying ourselves that Holy Fuck sounded about as bad as their name, we headed back to town on the tram. For supper we returned to Temple Bar for oysters at Oliver StJohn Gogarty's: yes, we know it is probably the most hyped tourist  pub in Dublin, but we have always liked it and they serve the biggest and juiciest Galway Bay oysters you could imagine.  Sated, we DARTed home and to  bed.  (We were greeted by a heron doing some night fishing on our pontoon.)  By that night the increasing wind had reached over 30knots, and Benj was up in his shorts at 0400 doubling up the lines and relocating fenders.  Any thoughts of moving on the next day were quickly discarded! (We later learned that on that night in Holyhead boats had been blown off their berths, actually ripping the cleats from the pontoons, so maybe we were lucky to be as secure as we were.)

Sunday. More of a 'rest' day than we would have planned, waiting for the gale force winds to subside, so there's little to relate other than reading the Saturday newspapers, reading our books, eating and dozing: in other words just a normal Sunday chez Benjamins.