The piece of string says we are about 60 nautical miles from Dun Laoghaire where we launched our heavy kayaks 39 days ago.  It’s calm outside the window with not a whitecap on the sea, and we are sitting on a comfy sofa in Annalong catching up with a friend for the afternoon. It’s often the interactions with people that I remember most about a trip so it’s always good to take time  out from paddle, paddle, paddle to chat, eat, rest, eat, chat eat.

The locals are all telling us that we’ve experienced a once-in-a-lifetime period of Irish weather with winds that barely rose above force 5, not a lot of rain, a mostly low swell and quite a bit of sun. We’re not complaining, although I’m going to risk being shouted down by saying that we’ve had a lot more headwinds than tail winds – albeit manageable ones. A few times 30-40 knot winds have been forecast but the prediction has changed at the last minute and we’ve been able to get on the water almost every day – with only 2 days off due to the weather, a further 3 days off due to illnesses & 1 day to wait for a new tent pole to arrive in the post and generally hang out.

It was great fun to paddle with Andy & Jane Morton for almost 2 weeks up the west and north coasts of Ireland. They have a great attitude to their trip around Britain and Ireland – they fish as they go along and use wood to cook as often as they can.  They can fit camp chairs, fishing lines, and a kelly kettle into their Aleut double. We bade them a fond farewell a few days ago in Ballycastle. We headed around Rathlin and then onwards on the tidal conveyor belt down the East coast. They headed off to Rathlin & then to Islay in Scotland the next day. You can follow their trip here.  Thanks to John Ruston for hosting us all in Ballycastle and for letting us take over his house for a couple of days!

The scenery continues to be beautiful every day, although the coast is getting lower lying now on the whole.It’s busier on the water – we dodged 3 ferries while crossing Belfast lough – VHF at the ready. Some of our campspots are getting less wild – we had an evening on one of the only pieces of public grass in Donagadee, and last night we camped outside the stripy bumblebee lighthouse at St Johns. It was good to have a brief chat with Henry, who has lived there for the last 33 years since the lighthouse was automated.

It looks like Saturday and Sunday are going to blow up pretty strong but we hope we might be able to make it back to Dun Laoghaire on Sunday – if not Monday.