On the way to Donnegal Bay

We left Burtonport at 07:05 and motored though South Aranmore sound with 5m beneath the keel  at the shallowest. A far cry from yesterday's 1.2m and shallowing! I could see the bottom in places, sand with occasional strands of weed, but there was plenty of depth.

The sky was grey, but it was a reasonably bright morning, with enough of a breeze that we raised sail as we cleared the sound and turned the engine off. 3 hours of sailing without needing to tack started us well on our way before the wind went too light and the engine went back on to let us motor sail. 


Just off Tormore, 5nm north east of Malin More Head, we encountered a crab pot buoy with a pick up line. I was odd to see one in 60m of water and we gave it a wide berth, but I suddenly noticed a brightly coloured line trailing in the water beneath Robinetta's hull. I cut the engine revs to stop the propeller immediately, but the buoys were trailing behind us, obviously caught on something. We unfurled the job to have steerage way while I tried to free the boat hook from its stowage position. I could not move it, so Julian gave me the helm while he tried.

When I looked beneath the boat to see where the line was I could not see it any more, and the buoys were not trailing in our wake. We had escaped! 5 minutes later the sun came out and stayed with us the rest of the day.

Rathlin o'Birne light house

We kept well off the coast to taking the shortest route from Burtonport to Donegal Bay, but went through the sound between Malin Beg and Rathlin O'Birne with its (ex)nuclear light house.

Slieve League

Our speed went down from 4 knots to 2 due to the tide funnelling though the strait, but once we were round the promontory and heading along the coast past Slieve League we soon picked up speed again.

The wind died to absolutely nothing, the swell was hardly noticeable, so we closed with the cliffs a little. The view was absolutely spectacular, and a geological cross section of the roots of a mountain range. Sailing west we went from highly metamorphosed rock, showing plastic deformation of the strata, to sedimentary beds with strong anticlines and synclines with associated faulting, to almost undisturbed bedding, which just happened to be vertical. Amazing place.

After a while we got the main down as it was doing nothing, and soon after we entered Teelin Harbour. The short length of pontoon on the quay was obviously meant for trip boats to pick up and discharge passengers, so we moored alongside an old wooden double ended fishing boat in show trim. Obviously not a working vessel any more!

After a walk to the pub for a drink we got a lift to the nearest shop, in Carrick, with some friendly Americans from Atlanta. They had seen Robinetta from the cliff top and taken pictures; a tiny boat with a dot being towed behind.

Teelin Harbour

The tour boats arrived back as we finished dinner aboard. They were happy we had not obstructed them landing their passengers, but we had moored where they normally would.... They could have moored outside us, but they would not be moving until 10am, so suggested we might like to tie up alongside a different boat instead. It was simple to move, so we did.