Northbound to?

Saturday July 1 2017. Happy Birthday Canada 150 years young!

1000 We’re underway. Nice day so far.  Clear the harbor say good by to the Seals. And at 1020 turn the engine off. Quiet just the sound of the sea swishing along the side of the boat. We’re making 4..9 knots over the bottom and the tide is about to change and give us a nice lift North. This trip we’re sailing inside Irelands eye and Lambay Island.  For those of you who have not experienced sailing inside an eye it’s dark and upside down. We have a nice S/W wind and pretty soon we are doing around 7 knots.  This continues for most of the day and then as we get closer to St. John’s Point the wind picks up suddenly and we have to put in a reef which Sally does quite well. We’re booming along and we have a sneeky suspicion that maybe we should have put in two reefs. Yup you guessed it. We should have. We’re now doing 8 knots the tide has turned and the seas are getting confused. Confused Seas are not good.

Ok we’ll divert to Ardglass is the decision.  We put in the 2^nd reef. We don’t slow down. The seas are getting really really confused now. We decide to furl the Jib.

Now it really gets interesting. The jib will only furl so much. Not good! We keep trying to clear it. No luck now it’s blowing a hooley and a half. Decision to drop the Jib we do. Things are now a whole bunch easier. Sally ties it all down with the dinghy painter. We start the engine drop the main and enter the harbor.

Ardglass is not the easiest port in the world to enter. There is not much water and the channel  is very narrow and rocky. The last time we were here we touched bottom. The tide is running with us and the wind is now up to two Hoolies  The Harbour looks full! OHOH. There are a bunch of people yelling at us from the dock. I have no idea what they’re saying . While trying to hear the current takes us into a stake. Crunch port side. Phooey I say. Figure out that the dock people want us to go inside the last pontoon. So we do. Lots of help and we sqeeze into a small finger and get secured. Shattered we are.

Boat not badly hurt but pride took a beating. We spent the night and then I woke up early 0630 had a look around and saw most of the N/B boats gone. Lickity spit I roused out the crew and underway we were by 0700. Sea was flat so kettle went on and we settled in for a long trip across to Stranraer Scotland. We arrived and shut the engine off at 1616. The wind then started too blow and the sky opened up.

Monday July 2/17.

We spent the day doing walk about and taking it easy.

Tues. July 03/17.
0600 woke up Cold windy bucketing. Decided to leave. (Not one of my better decisions) We got underway at 0900 sort of. We left the dock. Reversing out Wind took the boat not enough room to go into foreward! Gosh Golly this is not good.Kept trying but no cigar! Wind didn’t let up and we were pushed down to the end of the fairway against the long dock. Pinned there for a bit catching our breath and another boater came over and gave us a hand by taking a long warp out onto another boat and was able to pull the bow around while I work the engine against a spring line. We managed to get the bow into the wind and were able to leave. Shattered! We motored out of the loch and turned the corner to head up to Ardrosssan. The wind died Seas flat and we motored the whole way arriving at 1710 where we met our friends Tony and Ann.