Mary: Monday wash day and I drop the laundry at the laundrette, fill the lockers with food, and generally make things ship shape again. The lady from the laundrette helps me carry the bags back to the dinghy, but not make up the bunks with the clean sheets or pack the rest away, great service nevertheless, all bone dry and folded. And for those who sew, my unusual shaped fitted sheets fitted. I did over lock the elastic all the way round, which I think helps. As we left the pier the harbour master zooms up in his large inflatable dinghy, Where are your lifejackets, its against the law not to wear one in a vessel of 7 m. or less . Now I can see exactly where he’s coming from more accidents happen between shore and boat, and care does need to be taken, but I know why you always need one in Castletownbere its because the harbour master creates so much wash with his large inflatable dinghy, that he is in danger of swamping your boat with his wash. We move on to Crookhaven.

Tuesday and we waken up to rain, rain and more rain. Needless to say it was a lazy start that morning, we left with the idea of sailing as far as we could in daylight. By Courtmacsherry we decided to stop. The entrance is tricky and I mean tricky, there is a sand bank which moves, so very gingerly we motor forward, till we have 0.4m under the keel, then back then forward in another direction until we find the channel after the first little bit it does get easier, well with 1m or less under the keel it’s still tricky. All the way up to the pontoon. Now John Welsh is the harbour master here, he comes on board and we have a great chat, tells us where we can go what we can see encourages us to spend a second night. David and John start talking engines Kelvin engines where you have to petrol start then off with the diesel etc etc. In the morning he comes back with Clonakilty black pudding and white pudding. Both very tasty a bit like our own black and white pudding but nice and spicy. After breakfast Shaun O Farrell visits he tells us about moorings at Kinsale, phones up the man and books one, how good a service is that? I ask him about the lifeboat and whether they have trouble with the sand and low water if there are times when they can’t get out, no he said but sometimes they bump along!

We take a trip a four kilometre trip walking to the next village and look at the church, lots of mosaics, simple but good. We also visited Deirdre Crowley’s exhibition, paintings inspired by her local environment, land and sea scenes, we told her we would call in again in three years time. The paintings we really liked all had the red sticker, but it would be quite a long way to take a painting home all around the world.

Courtmacsherry’s Festival is this week and Wednesday morning they have the annual crab competition, lots of kids and perhaps overly encouraging parents, fish for crabs, quantity rather than quality count. At one o clock the car horn sounds on deaf ears, the competition is over someone shouts OK OK. Best crabs are found under our keel, they get pulled out by the handful. One mum told me they had won it last year and she had, sorry her child had used the washing bags you get from Persil filled with sausages, but she didn’t have any this year I asked if that was because she hadn’t done any washing, to which she replied in her Scottish accent only someone from Scotland would say that and laughed. She was fourth this year, I think she’ll be washing again in preparation for next years competition. It’s great to see such enthusiasm in the community. After the count, the crabs are released at the top of the slipway and everyone watches them scurry back into the sea, I wonder if crabs have memories and think this is what happened last year.

Arrival at Kinsale means 2% of our trip is over. 619 miles from Oban in two weeks, winds from no wind to force7. Seas flat calm to rough, rain, showers and sunshine what a life on the ocean waves.

Next stop Spain.