Archive for the ‘expedition’ Category

The sun shone on us in Ireland. We had some amazing weather and I can’t find enough positive words so sum up the coastline / people and wilderness that we encountered.

The stats:

43 days
6 days off ( 2 due to weather, 3 due to sickness, 1 for logistics (waiting for a tent pole)).
37 paddling days
874 nautical miles

The trip started smoothly with a ferry from North Wales to Dublin. It was strange to put a luggage tag on our kayaks and leave them in the ferry terminal in Holyhead, but they appeared safely on the luggage carousel in Dublin (don’t worry – the carousel wasn’t moving at the time!). Stena line took good care of them and made travel with the kayaks very easy.

We set off in early May in fairly strong side winds and chilly temperatures – the boys clean shaven with short hair! Sun, rain, hail, clouds – we had it all in the first few days. I found it hard to get warm and soon felt week and a bit sick at times. After a half day off and a hearty portion of fish and chips I was recovered and didn’t look back.

We met kind & hospitable people from the start & have dubbed it the ‘Hospitality circumnavigation’. People we knew, kayakers we’d never met and total strangers offered us showers, food, beds, their car, a lift to the doctors or use of a computer. I have come home with a warm feeling inside at how many lovely people there are out there.

The coastline of Ireland is amazing. Almost every day had gorgeous scenery that I’d go back and paddle. The West coast was my favourite with the swells & the plethora of offshore islands adding to the raw feel of the place.

We had some challenging days and a lot of headwinds (although mostly not that strong) but the sea still reminded us every so often who is boss.

There is so much to explore and while we took some time to look around – I’d happily go back and take twice as much time to poke around on all the lovely islands and be stormbound with a smile!

We saw thousands of birds – puffins and gannets are hard to beat though!

Unexpectedly we paddled with quite a few different people. About 6 locals joined us on the first morning, then we paddled with James for a couple of days and with Andy & Jane for almost 2 weeks. They are now in Scotland continuing their circumnavigation of Britain. Will Brown joined us for a day – it was sociable and fun!

Thanks to Barry and Roger for sharing the trip with me! Roger has put some lovely photos on his blog.

   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.

I can’t believe we’ve been on the Emerald Isle a month already. Time really does fly when you are having fun. I’m still really impressed with the scenery, the people & the wilderness feel to Ireland. If you like circumnavigations then it’s really a great island to paddle around. If you prefer a multi-day trip then there are so many wonderful coastlines and islands to explore. I wish we had longer than 50 days and could visit more of the inviting golden sandy crescent beaches that we pass, or nose around more of the ruins that are littered on islands and headlands. There must be thousands of islands here – each one with it’s own character.

One thing that has struck me is how many islands that once housed thriving communities have been abandoned. In some places the old homes now lie as ruins, with no rooves and crumbling walls. In others, it looks like a ghost town with pristine houses but no voices echoing off the walls. It seems a shame that communities can no longer exist in such beautiful surroundings but that’s the wayof the world

Over the last few days, we’ve paddled past some amazing cliffs -contorted folds of rock stretching impossibly up to the sky, with improbable arches leading us through to another set of amazing rockfaces. To my mind, they were more impressive than the famous Cliffs of Moher, but maybe there is an added wonder to discovering an unexpected natural spectacle. We’ve also visited some great islands. We spent a calm, hot evening and night on Inishmurray – a beautiful low lying haven for birds which has some impressive 5th century ruins including a monastery and an intact beehive hut. These ancient buildings are enclosed by a giant circular wall which maybe as old as 1st century. For company, we had many cormorants, black backed gulls, storm petrels and eider ducks with their new babies – as well as a few less welcome midges. It’s a special island with a magic feel to it.

About 10 days ago now, we landed for lunch at Mutton Island and spotted a double kayak on the beach, followed by two people waving excitedly. It was Andy and Jane Morton – a couple who are kayaking around Britain and Ireland. They launched from near their home in Plymouth at the start of April, bravely leaving their jobs behind for 6 months or so. We cut our day short to spend the afternoon and evening with them, and paddled onwards together the next day along the Cliffs of Moher, to the Arran islands & on to Conemara. That evening, Jane discovered her front hatch hadn’t been on properly and was flooded, soaking her clothes and their down sleeping duvet. We left them the next morning in the capable hands of some kind locals, who were offering the use of their washing machine and tumble dryer. 2 days later, Roger, Barry and I had a relaxed day waiting for the tide to take us through Achill Sound and we were pleased to see a double kayak heading up the sound towards the bridge. After a shop and pub meal, we all headed off together and have been kayaking together for the last week or so. It’s been good to have more company and see how other people travel by kayak. Andy loves his kelly kettle which when stocked with twigs brews up enough water for 5 teas in a couple of minutes. The middle hatch of their Valley Aleut has room for that, along with camping chairs & a few other luxuries that we’ve been jealously looking at! They update their trip website daily- and usually add one or two photos a day to their gallery which is here.

The weather has been really good for the last week with light winds almost every day. Whatever the forecast says, we seem to get a headwind in the afternoon -which has ranged from irritating to exhausting. On our longest paddling day, it picked up to a force 5  just as we started an 8mile section with no landing options. We were all very happy when we pulled up on dry land after about 11 and a half hours paddling. Having said that, we know we are lucky with the weather. We’ve been able to paddle everyday for about 10 days on an often stormy and committing West coast. It hasn’t rained much and the sun has shone most days. Sometimes you get lucky!

Today we are having a day off because Roger has had an allergic reaction to something. He’s fine but he’s gone to the doctors to be on the safe side. The rest of us are shopping, eating, relaxing and enjoying the last of the sun (rain is forecast tomorrow). Thanks to Oideas Gael, the College in Glen -who run courses in Irish language and culture – for giving us information about the doctors and for letting us use their computers to write this blog. The winds are meant to be strong tomorrow but in a fairly helpful direction so we’ll see if we get on the water then. In the meantime, I hear a rumour of an ice creamshop in the village ….

Statistics – Barry, Roger and I have paddled 573 nautical miles (as estimated by Barry) in 28 days.  We think we have approx. 300 miles more to do.

Stats so far: 17 days – 307 nautical miles – 14 paddling days
Wildlife – dolphins, gannets, minke whale, puffins, shearwaters, guillemots.. many other birds
Islands visited – Sherkin, Deenish, the Skelligs, Great Blasket

What a place! Ireland is wilder and more beautiful than I realised. I knew there were some special areas here but every day of the paddle so far has been pretty with endless camping possibilities & a myriad of beautiful offshore islands to explore. Most days we’ve passed cliffs, caves, arches & rugged headlands, often with flocks of birds cruising overhead or diving in the water around us.

My favourite day so far was crossing 12 miles from Deenish island to the infamous Skellig islands. Thick cloud shrouded the islands when we set off so we paddled into the murk, until slowly 2 improbable spires appeared through the white.  As we got closer hundreds of gannets came floating towards us in the sky, out fishing from their colony on Little Skellig, pausing above us with a flutter of white wings to check us out. Dozens of clownlike puffins also appeared, clumsily flapping their stubby wings in their search for food. We reached the jetty on Great Skellig after about 4 hours – just as all the tour boats arrived with dozens of tourists. I managed to land in between ships and the others looked after my kayak while I rushed up the steep steps to the impressive beehive huts at the top of the rock – that were built by monks hundreds of years ago. It must have been a harsh life on this tiny island, but the huts have stood the test of time and the countless storms that must have raged over them. Thousands of puffins now nest here and they seemed non-pulsed by the steady stream of tourists pointing their cameras at them (me included).

The tour boat captains warned us of a forecast change – a gale was now due that evening so we rushed away from the magnificent Skelligs and headed due north- making the most of a following wind and sea. Our destination was another beautiful island – Great Blasket 20 miles distant. As soon as a squall passed, we could see it’s two humps which gradually got bigger. Barry was feeling low on energy on his 6th day with diarrhea but he still stayed at the front most of the way there. He was struggling to eat and barely showed a smile when a pod of dolphins appeared alongside us. After another 5 hours we pulled up at the small pier there, carrying the kayaks up some steep rocky steps, before pitching our tents inside the ruins of some abandoned houses to shelter from the approaching gale. This beautiful island has a special feel to it which is hard to explain – it’s added to by the hundreds of seals lounging on the golden sandy beach, the tidal race guarding the island on the NE end, the pretty curve of the ridge line, the outlying small islands & the stoney remnants of a once busy village which was abandoned in the the 1950s.

We were joined on this day – and the previous day by James Allitt from Norfolk who paddling into the same campsite as us near Crookhaven. He’s paddling around as much of Ireland as he can in 6 weeks and it was fun to spend a couple of days with him. We left him enjoying Great Blasket yesterday as we headed East around Sybil head with a strong Westerly pushing us along. A 3-4 metre swell and an opposing tide kicked up a much more exciting sea than we’d expected. It was exhilarating and a bit gripping. We decided against another 10 mile paddle along some cliffs with an increasing forecast and landed after 10 miles at a small pier in the sheltered Smerwick harbour. Once the tents were up and we’d had lunch I checked my phone to find a message from Noel O’Leary from Irish Adventures offering us a ride to his place near Dingle & a bed for the night. We happily took the tents down, cleared up and took him up on his offer. Last night we enjoyed a pub meal and some live music – today is a NW wind force 5-6 so we are sheltering from the showers and gusts in Noel’s house & I’m able to borrow a computer to write this blog – and update the previous ones which were tricky to do on my phone. Later today we’ll go out with Noel to kayak with Fungi the famous friendly Dingle dolphin which I’m really looking forward to! Noel also runs Dingle Adventure Race every year, which looks like a fun event.