Portmagee to Bantry Bay

The patter of rain on the roof woke us, but it soon stopped, and we had sunshine by 07:30 when we turned the engine on to leave. Coming out of Portmagee felt simple since we now knew the way, and we raised sail and turned the engine off before we met the swell at the entrance.

Puffin Island

I had written up an old fashioned passage plan for the day, and as soon as we were outside Puffin Island we turned onto a compass course of 145º which we would follow for the next 17nm, towards Dursey Sound. This put us on a very broad reach with the swell coming from astern, and as the wind went lighter we shook out the reef and tied on a preventer to stop the boom lifting too much as the swells rolled under us.

Skellig Michael

As Robinetta passed Bolus Head we were making an average of 4 knots over the ground, which put us ahead of schedule, which was no bad thing. An hour later we furled away the jib. We were virtually running and it kept loosing the wind and just flapping about so it was better away. Even then we kept up over four knots.
We could see the Skelligs in the distance, but were not tempted to head out to see them!

entering Dursay Sound

As we reached the entrance to Dursey Sound Deanha of Dingle came past us and motored ahead, but we kept sailing through the sound, on full main and staysail.
The cable car went overhead as we approached; an odd sight!

Cable Car across Dursey Sound

The wind increased as we came through to the south side of the sound, and we went head to wind to put some of the reef back in, before turning back onto course to clear Crow Head and Cat Rock. A big French yacht was motored in the other direction, and we waved at each other, then he headed into Dirsey Sound, and we gybed round onto our new course to take us along the north shore of Bantry Bay.

Black Bull Head

Our destination was Lawrence Cove Marina, on Bere Island, and we had a lovely broad reach along the shore. I had given Julian a course to steer to keep us well clear of any coastal dangers, but as we closed with Black Bull Head it became obvious that I should have made a bigger allowance for leeway and tidal push. We went closer than I planned, (still out far enough to be safe though!). Almost as soon as we were past the wind began to build.

We put in the second and third reefs within minutes of each other, and soon after lowered the main completely. We had put the engine on to do this, but as I finished putting on the sail ties I realised Julian had turned it off again. We were sailing just on the staysail, but Robinetta was sailing well, with the coast line sliding past noticeably. Just for interest we used the Marine Traffic application on Julian's phone, and discovered we were doing between 2.5 and 3 knots on staysail alone. No wonder the main sail was overpowered!

Entrance to Piper Sound

An hour later later we entered Piper Sound, headed to pass north of Bere Island, through the sheltered channel, then into Lawrence Cove. We put the engine on, but the staysail was still doing most of the work as we passed Castletownbere, then followed the channel round to Lawrence Cove Marina.

We needed to use the chart plotter to find the entrance, bu once we knew where it was we found it well buoyed and simple to enter.

I got the bowsprit in, and Julian picked out a blown off berth. It took us two goes round to get it, but there were no real problems, and we were soon tied up securely.

It was quarter to seven by the time we wandered up to the marina office, which was shut, but since we wanted to get off early in the morning we phoned the number on the door, and Rachel came down immediately and took our money. She could not have been more helpful, phoning the shop (which shut at 7) to make sure they would stay open until we got there, and making sure we had the right change for the shower.

After our shop and a drink at the pub we headed back to Robinetta, but got waylaid by Noel from Deanha of Dingle who invited us aboard for a drink. We ended up eating dinner very late!