Well, actually strong wind bound but it doesn’t sound as dramatic. We are anchored at the South end of Smerwick harbour on the North side of the Dingle peninsula, off a beautiful sandy beach. The Irish coast radio has issued a small craft strong wind warning, for a yachtsman’s gale, force six, overnight and into Monday. But more of that later.
From Valentia we decided to pay Dingle a visit. Although this would mean another motoring passage in very light winds it was only 16 miles. We shopped in Knightstown before leaving and were away by 1200 and were tied up in Dingle marina by 1500 sorted out with gate codes, shower tokens, a key fob for the showers and, eventually, the WiFi password.
Dingle is a very popular tourist town, the Main Street lined with pubs, restaurants and craft shops and tripper boats in the harbour guaranteeing money back if the passengers did not see Fungi, the harbour dolphin. From our perspective the best attraction was a big Garvey SuperValu supermarket with the best selection of fresh vegetables we have seen in Ireland so far. We wished we hadn’t bothered shopping in Knightstown now!
The church/nunnery had very attractive gardens but was beaten into third place in the attraction stakes by Murphy’s ice cream parlour!
We debated whether to stay a second night in Dingle but with the wind forecasting SE force 2 to 4 we decided to take advantage of the downwind sail to shorten our next passage to Kilrush. We left the marina at 1300 and it soon became apparent that the SE 5-6 later was already with us.
We weren’t too concerned as the passage to Smerwick was only 28 miles and Smerwick had an anchorage sheltered from winds between SE and SW according to the pilot book. We put 2 reefs in the main and 2 in the Genoa and, despite the big seas, were soon making 7 knots through the water.
The passage through Blasket Sound was interesting/exciting/scary depending on your perspective. We were getting strong gusts of 26 knots and were gybing downwind around the rock outcrops.
Once through the Blaskets we were joined by a pod of dolphins who played with us for half an hour until we approached the entrance to Smerwick. Off the cliffs we were hit with fierce gusts up to 30 knots and the wind dying away all in a few seconds. At the entrance we furled the genoa and motored across the harbour, again receiving gusts of up to 30 knots and spray coming on board. We wondered if we would actually find any shelter at the anchorage. Luckily we did, the waves died away.
We still had the wind but as the land to windward is low lying we don’t have any big gusts. It remains to be seen what happens to the wind on Monday. Hopefully we can move on towards our next major port, Kilrush, or at least to our alternative stop off, Fenit.
Sailing Lacerta 