Cape Clear

Another foggy morning. Too foggy to contemplate leaving but we didn't want to do nothing with the day so we decided to take the ferry to Cape Clear. The ferry acts as the local delivery service for all provisions to the island as well as passengers and has quite a decent crane fitted to lift heavy goods on and off. A van comes from Skibereen with people's orders which are loaded on to the ferry. Waiting in the queue we heard that today they were holding a family 'run' on the island. The ferry was full. Heading out into the bay the fog seemed to get even thicker. We could only just make out the Lousy Rocks south cardinal.

 We sat inside for most of the trip. After a while we could tell that we were sailing along the north side of the island towards the north harbour but we could only occasionally see land.

Then, suddenly I saw a mast go past the window. A sailing yacht was heading east only metres away from the ferry. I was really glad that we were not out in this weather.

The visibility was a little better in the harbour and there were a surprising number of yachts in there. Four or five. We walked along to the shop and café and Alison bought a postcard and we had a drink. Quite a few people were signing on for the 5k run. We had a little map showing the walking routes so we headed off towards the south harbour. There was also a yacht anchored in there, and a lot more room than it looked like in the pilot book pictures. From south harbour the well-marked path heads south to the point. I'm not sure where this picture was taken, but I'm sure that normally the views are stunning.

 The path then heads north again back to the road and then off the road into the woods. It was brightening up a little and the the light was really interesting.

 The fog was condensing on everything - my hair was quite wet. So were the hundreds of spider's webs.

 Once we left the woods something went wrong and we got quite lost. Eventually we found we had gone around in a circle back to the road. We couldn't work out what we had done wrong so we kept to the road, which we knew wound around to the Heritage Centre.

The Heritage Centre has a number of good exhibits. For me the most interesting one was about Conor O'Brien. I have a book of his on dinghy sailing and knew of his yacht Saoirse which he went round the world on. It turns out that Saoirse was built in Baltimore and has a larger, near sister ship Ilen also built there. Ilen was commissioned by the Falkland Islands as a transport ship because Saoirse had been much admired there during O'Brien's visit. Ilen has been brought back to Ireland and restored.

 Back at the north harbour we could see a little more than before. We had a good lunch at the café and met a group who were paddling around the area in currachs. They had come over the previous day and camped overnight. The had planned to visit the Fastnet rock today but didn't feel safe going in the conditions.

Sea kayaking is a popular activity in Ireland. It's nice to see people choosing to do it in traditional craft.

We also met a Breton family who had been on the other side of the pontoon for a day or two in Baltimore. They had made the trip in their own yacht. I'm not sure if they have radar or not. I hope so.

On the return trip on the ferry I noticed a card on the wall advertising a pub with music. It was quite a way out of town but we walked up there in the evening and had a really fine meal. The music was low key but there was an elderly banjo player who was really excellent. A group of German tourists listening included one chap who had learned some jigs on the flute and he joined in, playing beautifully.