25th June Howth to Carlingford
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25th June Howth to Carlingford
Had an amazing sail up here to Carlingford Lough. Howth Yacht Club gave us a great sendoff, and we put up the sails only to discover that we were broaching horribly. I'd dumped the mainsail, got it as flat as I could and was still finding that Arty refused to tack. We were gybing in ever decreasing triangles, with yachts, rocks and walls forming the three sides. Fortunately we got our break and I managed to get her head to wind long enough for Huw to stick in a reef, which did the trick.
We were sailing North, with the wind from the north-east. Huw and our press-ganged team member, Sean, had lengthened my boom the day before, which has almost made her a different boat to sail. At about two o'clock Toby jumped on board to feed me lunch and give me my meds. At 2:30 I saw what I thought was a whale's blowhole off my starboard bow, but assumed I was seeing things. Then there was another one. A second or two later we had two whales jumping, fully breached, out of the water on my port bow. We think there were perhaps three or four individuals, definitely humpback whales. It's an incredible privilege to see one at all, even just a dorsal fin and a fluke, but to see two, clearly showing off, clearing the water vertically less than half a mile away was amazing. Then I realised that Arty was in the middle of what was probably a family group, which was possibly not a good idea. One went almost right underneath me, although I was unaware of it, the guys on the RIB saw it. At this point I wish I had some great video footage, or at least some still photographs, but I'm afraid that we failed utterly (almost, Huw has a video of one jump). I'll see if I can get it onto the website.
We were welcomed in to Carlingford in great style, and treated royally. The Lions Club of Loury gave us a very generous donation, and laid on a buffet for us. This morning the couple who run the restaurant here cooked us a full Irish breakfast, which is a complete contrast to our usual toast and coffee. We should be leaving here about midnight, but it's yet another place we will be sorry to say goodbye to.
Page last updated on 3 July 2009 at 09:28