Inishmurray and beyond

Woke to the sound of gentle rain on the cabin roof, so did not want to get up until it stopped. Then it was on with waterproofs to keep our trousers dry as we prepared to leave. Julian reported that the midges were ready for breakfast before he was, so we cast off from our friendly boat at 0815, and Julian finished getting the bowsprit out as we left harbour.

Away from the shore there was just enough wind to be worth getting the sails up, so I bent on the no1 jib. Even with that and the full main we were making less than 3 knots, so we motor sailed most of the way to Inishmurray, with only occasional rests from the engine noise.

We got the sails down again as we rounded the east end of Inishmurray and motored up the coast to the tiny bay at Clashymore Harbour.
Conditions were perfect so we nosed our way in and dropped the anchor in 7m of water. Once we were certain it was holding I rowed us ashore in Worm.

What a place! Abandoned since 1950 the houses were all roofless, and overgrown with nettles. Bluebells and sea thrift lined the paths and carpeted the sea facing land, while bracken and brambles had taken over the fields. A wide variety of birds shared the land with rabbits, both farmland and sea side varieties but not huge numbers of any one species, although there were a lot of black backed gulls.

A large cashel wall enclosed an ancient monastic settlement with beehive huts as well as gabbled ones. Midges made us keep moving, but did not swarm us as a soft rain started to fall. A lovely place and well worth the visit.

Robinetta's anchor came up easily and we motored away into a flat calm, while the rain damped rather than wet us. When the rain dried up half an hour later the wind began to increase, and we soon had a lovely f3 breeze on the beam that took us towards Killala faster than our engine could.

The entrance to Killala is over a bar that only has .3m at low water. We were on a dead run as we approached, so got the sails down in the outer anchorage and went in under staysail and engine. We had timed our arrival well, and got over the bar at half tide, following a complicated series of leading marks, one pair of which had disappeared.... There were red and green channel markers to replace them though, so we made it over safely.

The tide wooshed us down the harbour approach between a pair of training walls, and tide and staysail alone had us moving at 3 knots. Once into the harbour I had to turn back into the tide, to raft up on a fishing boat in the deepest part of the harbour, Robinetta needed quite a lot of revs to make forward progress. Julian hopped aboard the fishing boat and we were tied up securely by half eight. The sail between Inishmurray and Killala could not have been bettered, and Inishmurray itself made a perfect lunch stop. A really great day on the water.