A bad day on the water

Is better than a good day in the office or so they say.

I've had some very good days in the office. Today wasn't really bad but it felt that way at times. The mooring at Dunmore East was very rolly and we have had better nights.

When we got up the threatened fog hadn't materialised in the harbour but Hook Head was in it. At least we could get across the shipping lane in Waterford Harbour ok. But by the time we had breakfast it had got worse. We layed in a course on the plotter so we would have something to steer by.

We dropped the buoy and as we motored out I bent on the no 1 jib. The boat was pitching a lot and it was hard work.

By the time I got back to the cockpit the visibility was terrible and Alison was struggling to steer a compass course to match the plotter route. There wasn't much wind but I got the main sail up and it gradually filled. Motor sailing was a bit better but the wind was SE and we had to put a tack in to clear Hook Head.

We did see the light house, once we were very close. We could make the course now and the wind strengthened enough to turn the engine off. We had 10 miles to go across the bay to Kilmore Quay and all we could see were three shades of grey, one for the fog and two for the sea, so at least we could make out the waves. The sea state was ok and I thought about using the autohelm but decided to put the effort in. After an hour Alison suggested the autohelm and I gave in and we set it up. Steering with nothing to look at is tedious.

I have a new toy. A collapsable creel. As we were intending to anchor tonight I needed bait, we were going quite fast over the ground but a lot of that was tide so I got the mackerel line out. After a while the wind died and we decided to put the engine back on so I hauled the line in. It felt heavy so I was hopeful but I didn't say anything. Yes. We got two nice mackerel. I filleted them and we put the filets below for dinner and kept the heads and backbones for bait.

Off Kilmore Quay are a group of islands called the Saltees. There is almost a causeway to them called St Patrick's Bridge. A marked channel crosses it with 2.4m minimum depth. We never saw the Saltees, or the Kilmore shore but we did see the buoys (except one which we had heard was off station on the radio).

The next leg was to Carnsore Point. Then we would be in the Irish Sea. Alison heated some soup for lunch as it was cold and grim in the fog and then stayed down to wash up. She missed the only patch of blue sky we had all day. As we got near Carnsore Point the clouds broke a little and I spotted Black Rock and the shore. it really felt like it was clearing up and I saw brightness where the sun must be.

But it lasted 5 minutes and then closed down again. We never saw Carnsore Point itself or even the wind farm.

I needed to rest my eyes and Alison took over the watch - George was still at the helm. One of the bad things about the new chart plotter is that it snaps way points to bouys too readily. I usually change it but I had forgotten to do the one called Splaugh. The line from Fundale to Splaugh avoids rocks and banks on either side. We were ok until the tide turned but sometime around 4pm we found ourselves in nasty overfalls and a ridiculous amount of foul tide.

One moment we would be on course, the next going backwards or heading straight for the rocks. At least the rocks were not scarily close.

We fought our way north east, rarely making 1/2 knot over the ground. That got us out of the overfalls but all we could do was hold station. I phoned Rosslare and found the next ferry was coming in at 17:30. So we needed to keep out of its way too. At least we were at the edge of the channel and the visibility was improving. The tide gradually slackened and we could head in the South Shear at 1/2 knot, then a whole knot! The ferry came past with plenty of room and we started to relax. It had been a stressful hour or two.

We made our way past the harbour to the recommended anchorage in increasingly benign conditions. Another yacht was already at anchor looking comfortable. We dropped the hook well west of it. A little fleet of Walker Bay sailing dinghies came out of the tiny harbour nearby and used us as their race mark. We exchanged greetings. I got the new creel out and tied it to the chain of the dinghy anchor, put one of the mackerel remains in the zip bait pocket, tied the line to Robinetta and dropped the assembly over the bow.

I put some rice on and skinned the filets and fried them gently in butter with the remains of our garlic and then dumped a jar of balti sauce in. It wasn't exactly a gourmet meal but the fish was tasty. We finished off with cheese and biscuits.

Then we started planning. Today's tides had scared us. The route north from the anchorage leads through the North Shear. The pilot says the tide runs south 10 hours out of 12. Tomorrow, the favourable two hours started at midnight and noon. North of there the favourable tide would be from 8am until 2pm. The only way to make it work was to leave at midnight, get through the Shear and anchor north of Raven Point until 8am. We were too tired to do that!

The next best option was to head back out of the South Shear and north outside the sands. That looked ok.

We went to bed.

On the plus side, we got to where we planned to, nothing bad happened, we had couple of hours pure sailing, we caught fish and we tried out the creel. On the minus side we never saw this section of coast - we might as well not have been in Ireland and we failed to understand the tides..