Yesterday’s wet and miserable weather cleared to a beautiful morning – we slipped from Dingle in lovely calm conditions and made quick progress under engine to the West, through the Blasket Islands (the most westerly point of our voyage) and then northwards toward the Aran Islands. This was going to be a long day, around 85 miles at 5 knots but we are very keen to keep making progress north as we are now thinking that we should probably get Little Scarlet either to Scotland or Belfast for mid June (three weeks away) - we need to leave her somewhere safe and sound and relatively accessible by public transport while we head back to UK and beyond for a fortnight.
Having turned northwards we were once again treated to a display by a pod of dolphins but it quickly became evident that it was going to be a difficult day!
To quote from Nigel’s notes in the log –
“So we waited 12 plus hours yeasterday after the westerly winds subsided to allow time for the wind
waves to dissipate. Wrong! A confused sea continued to run on top of the ocean swell until late
afternoon, resulting in a bumpy passage. We cannot complain as we have been so fortunate to encounter
favourable sea conditions for the majority of the circumnavigation to date. Lesson ‘re-identified’:
prepare lunchtime meal before sailing! It was a pleasure to finally complete the passage through Gregory
Sound and make our way into the shelter of Kilronan Harbour and a visitors buoy as the last of the late
May daylight subsided. One of three yachts secured to visitors buoys. We had a quick snack and turned in
– an early start required tomorrow morning if we are to have time to explore the island and get away in
time to make our way to Galway in time to get through the lock gate there."
