![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBeing clean and around mostly clean people was great, I tell you that for nothing. We headed out of Clare Island at 0500 Monday morning, scheduled to sail all day and all night and a good bit of the next day to reach Greencastle, Co Donegal, since the wind was due to come about southwesterly Tuesday night, with winds of Force 7 and 8 expected Tuesday night and Wednesday, and the captain wanted to get us in an area with decent harbours before that happened.
Also, because of the anchor problem at Clare Island, we were, let's say, running slightly behind where he would've liked us to be.
All hands call to set sails was 0600, but Monday was a boringly calm day. We had main and main staysail and fore staysail set, and briefly the two lower squares, but mostly we were under engines. Without the need to set and strike, the watches had it easy, with only cleaning stations, steering and lookout necessary, keeping an eye out for lobster pots and boats.
This is me on lookout, coming out past Achill Sound. Note the fabulous goofy-looking floppy hat. We went up Donegal Bay, passing for a couple of hours out of sight of the mainland, if not rocky islets like this one. I was on galley duty, so I got to go below and get bruised and dizzy falling around helping serve and clean up lunch (and dinner, and the next morning's breakfast, but it meant I could sleep through the night watch of midnight to four, sailing in the cold dark, so I was perfectly happy). Intermittent sun, but mostly pale cloud.
In the afternoon, we learned how to splice a rope, since Donal had to fix one of the lines they'd snapped trying to get the anchor up, and decided to make it a practical demonstration. We also were talked through what the various lines on the midships deck do, again, and on the poop.
Engineer got pissed off when the heads blocked five times that day.
That was it. Turned in after dinner, and slept well, rocked by the swell and the comforting swoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow through the waves. Had galley call at 0730, cleaning stations after breakfast. My sunburn had at this point started to heal, and was peeling badly; and my lips had started to get quite nastily chapped.
It was a cool day, and cloudy. Mostly under engines, but a bit of sailing up around the northwest tip of Donegal. Pictures one, two, three. Some very stark coastline.
Greencastle is on Lough Foyle (I like this picture for the lowering clouds and the windy chop: it gives you a real feel for the day). Interesting place, Lough Foyle, with headland and lighthouse and County Derry across the way. It was raining in Derry: you could see the rain falling on the hills across the lough.
Coming up on Greencastle, I got to go out on the bowsprit with Donal and Jonathan and Alan and learn how to stow the jib and fore staysail. It's cool out there, bouncing up and down, folding the sail across itself like a concertina, making straight lines and clean creases, balancing and overbalancing and grabbing on. It's hard awkward work, but fun.
Also got to help stow the main staysail, which was also very cool.
Got in to Greencastle after midday. Helped moored the ship - flaked out mooring lines so they'd run easily, etc - and helped sort out the gangway. There was fresh water in Greencastle - apparently it's Kevin O'Leary's (the ship's cook) home port (though he had an American accent), so brushes were handed out and the deck was hosed and scrubbed. Afterwards drew numbers for showers: I was number sixteen, so had time to find the shop and the rest of the town. There's not much in Greencastle: three pubs, the National Fisheries College, and a maritime museum. We brought the nightlife with us when we came and took it away with us when we left.
(I ended up with two pint glasses from the Ferryport Bar, Greencastle, even though I never went in: the bar gave them away to a couple of people who decided they didn't want them.)
In the mess, waiting for showers. You can see how small it is down there.
Most of the others were showered early and went off to see what there was to see in town before dinner. Being still there, me and a couple of the guys were drafted to help decorated a cake by the cook - it was Cormac's seventeenth birthday that day: chocolate fudge cake, with a very wobbly "Happy 17th B'day, Cormac!" on it in green and red icing and other strange abstract decorations - then had my shower: half a minute in water, turn water off, soap up, half a minute's water to rinse off. We impressed Shane the engineer, I think: twenty showers from the tank which (he said) normally only gives eight or so.
A tasty roast dinner, with fudge cake for desert (anyone who put their bowl down was asked, 'Are you finishing that?' and if the answer was 'No,', three forks would descend at once). Then I was on watch, eight till ten: the others went to the pub, and I went to my bunk, woken at half past midnight by dancing and singing and giggling as Cormac and surfer boy Kev from Lahinch and Clare came in and wobbled into their bunks (across from and above mine, respectively).
(Cormac, incidentally, was a very nice lad and a good musician, far and away one of the least annoying people on the ship even if I do think the dead socks I found in my bunk one afternoon were his: his stuff tended to spill all over the place.)
At dinner, we were told we'd be sailing at 0830 in the morning for Bangor, where the captain had booked a berth. SW winds of Force 8 expected. We were also advised that we were sailing in luxury, with showers at Clare Island, Greencastle, and probably in Bangor: some cruises had none.
That was the fifth and sixth days.
Also, because of the anchor problem at Clare Island, we were, let's say, running slightly behind where he would've liked us to be.
All hands call to set sails was 0600, but Monday was a boringly calm day. We had main and main staysail and fore staysail set, and briefly the two lower squares, but mostly we were under engines. Without the need to set and strike, the watches had it easy, with only cleaning stations, steering and lookout necessary, keeping an eye out for lobster pots and boats.
This is me on lookout, coming out past Achill Sound. Note the fabulous goofy-looking floppy hat. We went up Donegal Bay, passing for a couple of hours out of sight of the mainland, if not rocky islets like this one. I was on galley duty, so I got to go below and get bruised and dizzy falling around helping serve and clean up lunch (and dinner, and the next morning's breakfast, but it meant I could sleep through the night watch of midnight to four, sailing in the cold dark, so I was perfectly happy). Intermittent sun, but mostly pale cloud.
In the afternoon, we learned how to splice a rope, since Donal had to fix one of the lines they'd snapped trying to get the anchor up, and decided to make it a practical demonstration. We also were talked through what the various lines on the midships deck do, again, and on the poop.
Engineer got pissed off when the heads blocked five times that day.
That was it. Turned in after dinner, and slept well, rocked by the swell and the comforting swoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow through the waves. Had galley call at 0730, cleaning stations after breakfast. My sunburn had at this point started to heal, and was peeling badly; and my lips had started to get quite nastily chapped.
It was a cool day, and cloudy. Mostly under engines, but a bit of sailing up around the northwest tip of Donegal. Pictures one, two, three. Some very stark coastline.
Greencastle is on Lough Foyle (I like this picture for the lowering clouds and the windy chop: it gives you a real feel for the day). Interesting place, Lough Foyle, with headland and lighthouse and County Derry across the way. It was raining in Derry: you could see the rain falling on the hills across the lough.
Coming up on Greencastle, I got to go out on the bowsprit with Donal and Jonathan and Alan and learn how to stow the jib and fore staysail. It's cool out there, bouncing up and down, folding the sail across itself like a concertina, making straight lines and clean creases, balancing and overbalancing and grabbing on. It's hard awkward work, but fun.
Also got to help stow the main staysail, which was also very cool.
Got in to Greencastle after midday. Helped moored the ship - flaked out mooring lines so they'd run easily, etc - and helped sort out the gangway. There was fresh water in Greencastle - apparently it's Kevin O'Leary's (the ship's cook) home port (though he had an American accent), so brushes were handed out and the deck was hosed and scrubbed. Afterwards drew numbers for showers: I was number sixteen, so had time to find the shop and the rest of the town. There's not much in Greencastle: three pubs, the National Fisheries College, and a maritime museum. We brought the nightlife with us when we came and took it away with us when we left.
(I ended up with two pint glasses from the Ferryport Bar, Greencastle, even though I never went in: the bar gave them away to a couple of people who decided they didn't want them.)
In the mess, waiting for showers. You can see how small it is down there.
Most of the others were showered early and went off to see what there was to see in town before dinner. Being still there, me and a couple of the guys were drafted to help decorated a cake by the cook - it was Cormac's seventeenth birthday that day: chocolate fudge cake, with a very wobbly "Happy 17th B'day, Cormac!" on it in green and red icing and other strange abstract decorations - then had my shower: half a minute in water, turn water off, soap up, half a minute's water to rinse off. We impressed Shane the engineer, I think: twenty showers from the tank which (he said) normally only gives eight or so.
A tasty roast dinner, with fudge cake for desert (anyone who put their bowl down was asked, 'Are you finishing that?' and if the answer was 'No,', three forks would descend at once). Then I was on watch, eight till ten: the others went to the pub, and I went to my bunk, woken at half past midnight by dancing and singing and giggling as Cormac and surfer boy Kev from Lahinch and Clare came in and wobbled into their bunks (across from and above mine, respectively).
(Cormac, incidentally, was a very nice lad and a good musician, far and away one of the least annoying people on the ship even if I do think the dead socks I found in my bunk one afternoon were his: his stuff tended to spill all over the place.)
At dinner, we were told we'd be sailing at 0830 in the morning for Bangor, where the captain had booked a berth. SW winds of Force 8 expected. We were also advised that we were sailing in luxury, with showers at Clare Island, Greencastle, and probably in Bangor: some cruises had none.
That was the fifth and sixth days.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 12:10 pm (UTC)I loved it. If I could have stayed there the whole time, I'd have been happy. I'd have waved to the ships sailing by. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 12:48 pm (UTC)Clare Island and Inisboffin really felt intensely isolate.