Over the Irish Sea to the end of the UK

Goodbye Tobermory, and we are off. Its calm and we all set in our wet weather gear. It all started once we rounded the Northern headland of Mull.

#@$%@#$%. Rough is an understatement, these were big chunky short waves. As Finn says, “they both sat there, green face with puckered lips and said, “I did not think it would be like this!” Archie threw up first, then me, then we huddle and glared at Finn for the next 10 hours, taking turns to fill the bucket. It was horrible and we were so very very unhappy. The captain decided to save his bacon and anchor off the East coast of Colonsay. So, we got some rest from the relentless violent rocking. We then decided to sail down the Irish Sea rather than the West coast of Ireland.

The East coast of Ireland is very beautiful, we had gigantic, long rollers, that were better but still not great. We anchored in Redbay and were rocked to sleep. I don’t sleep on the first night of anchoring. We then sailed down into Dublin’s huge commercial port! We radioed in and were told to stay on the port side of channel, so that we are not in the way of larger boats. We did great with large vessels all around us.

The marina is in a pub, and like most UK marinas you have to pay to use the showers and the times varies between 4 to 7 minutes for £3-4. Dublin’s a large vibrant city with super friendly folk. We also met some amazing ancient graffiti artists. Did you know, many graffiti walls will change overnight? I didn’t. We met up with Grainne and Kieran and had a fantastic time exploring the city. Next stop was Penzance.

Now the Irish sea can make you call for your mum, I did that, maybe twice. Archie thankfully sleeps very well on the boat. This was our first proper night shift sailing. The dark can play tricks, I was certain we were heading into land! So poor Finn didn’t get much sleep because I had to check with him that we were safe a few times. The sea state is known as confused; I would call it unhinged. Imagine when you’re so angry and you cannot show it, your body quivers with rage. Thats the Irish sea, its harsh, rocks the life out of the boat and bangs on its hull but our TYRIAN kept us safe. England’s coastline never looked that good. 48hours later we were in Penzance.

Penzance is beautiful, warm and everyone around us were on holiday too. The marina/boat yard was our first wall mooring. Captain Finn was amazing at parking. The space was just big enough for us and the wall just looked evil. I imagined it said, “mess this up sonny and you will cry!” He did great, like a natural. Bow nearly touched the wall and then going astern push our stern to starboard and bow to port and just slid in sideways… like a pro. (Donald remember the feeling?) Immensely proud moment for us. We then had another boat moored against ours. We met a very adventurous and wonderful couple called Brend and Silka who were from the Netherlands and sailing AIM. We went surfing and exploring. Archies second favourite sport is surfing! It’s a bit too wild for me. Lands End is interesting, the castle and coastline of Penzance and surround area is breathtaking. Our experienced crew member Graham joined us, and we left the UK.

Love to all…