Waterford waiting for burgers

Regrettably, we did not make the dash for Falmouth today. Weatherforecast includes possible 8bf winds and 7bf for sure - not from behind at all...
We deliberated for a couple of hours, but around 1800 we decided to let this 'weather window' pass. As a result we will be stuck until Thu morning for sure. Hopefully Thursday's winds will come through as forecasted as this point. If that is the case we will have 6bf right from the NW and should have an exiting ride.
This morning we had a marvelous swim in the hotel resort spa across from the marina. A bit of decadence won't hurt.

Waterford (Irish South coast)

We sailed 15M up the river Suir this morning and arrived in Waterford.
Looks like nice town with amazing golfcourse. The sail started very
smoothly yesterday pm. Dublin bay was full of racing boats, some sun,
3bf and totally smooth water. Pieter hoped the rest of the week is
going to be like that... Around dinnertime the wind tuned to SW. And
picked up to 5-6bf on the nose and we ended up motorsailing in rocky
seas. This lasted until early morning when the wind turned farther to
the south and we got an angle to sail to Waterford rather fast. In the
end we sailed about 100 miles in 20 hours - an excellent start-up
sail!
Matthew and Pieter have been adapting fast. Rene spotted Dolphins /
Poroises and Matthew nearly ran over a sleeping seal/sea-lion. It is
unclear who got the biggest scare.
We cleaned boat, gave the town a 'Chippendale shower show' and are now
ready for drinks!

Dublin

Yesterday we readied the boat for the next leg. Motor and battery check, filled up diesel, cleaned deck. Checked wiring motor panel and put extra chaff protection on the genua. Hartendief is still in top shape!
We had a great lunch with my Harvard AMP mate Enda Connellan, the CEO of the Dublin Harbour/Port company. Enda is also a serious sailor and very entertaining. He toured his empire with us: miles of docks, ferry, container and roro terminals. Impressive stuf.
Dublin has grown tremendeously over the last 15 years and has some very sleek and modern KNSM-Island like developments. After lunch we came back to the boat to finish our maintenance work and at night we enjoyed Dun Laoghaire, wich is a young, modern affluent bayside satelite town of Dublin - again with lots of new modern sleek bayside developments. The RIYC stands here overlooking a big, ultra modern marina (fingerprint access control!). The RIYC is just one of 4 yacht clubs here and there is a tremendeous racing fleet that dwarfs anything we have in the Netherlands. We had dinner at the club on Thursday, which turned out to be the last race day of the season and the place was full with nice enthusiastic racing crowd. One of the owners of "Attitude" explained how we should be able to make even Hartendief plane under spinnaker by dropping it off a wave; "If you haven't got green water up to the mast you haven't tried hard enough". We will try that some time.... :)

Joost and Charles just got on the 'Patton Flyer' bus to the airport. We had a great time guys!

Dun Laoghaire is in full preparation for its international cultural festival starting tonight, but crew 4 with Pieter, Rene and Matthew will be on the plane by now and the plan is to leave this afternoon to catch the south going tide to Waterford (100M). There is a slight chance that we will head for Falmouth in one go, but most likely is that we will overnight in Waterfort Sun-Mon to let a patch of strong S-winds pass and than set out for the 200M sail to England by mid afternoon on Monday. Winds look terrible after Wed morning, so if we do not escape before that time we will get stuck in (beautiful :)) Ireland. We won't take stupid risks though and 7bf backstay wind is the max we plan to encounter. Hopefully the weather forecasters are having a good week. The models have been flawless so far.

Dublin - Dun Laoghaire

Goodmorning all. Early in the morning we arrived at Dublin after 22
hours sailing. We were able to use the sailwindow to its best to get
here. It was a beautiful night, early very clear with an immense
amount of stars. Charles has seen a lot of falling stars, later on
more clouds arrived, but kept their raindrops for Scotland! We
escaped. Joost is a bit disappointed for seeing only 1 seal. We tried
to catch some mackerel, to the commodere Jos' amazement without
success. Today we will party and do some shopping in the city.
As far as we can oversea, the boat will stay here for the next 2 days.
The next crew will arrive in Dublin on Saturday, due to weather
conditions we didn't make it back to England.
Today we will update some photos.

Glenarm

Leaving Glenarm for the general Dublin. Making use of 24 hour weather
window between latest low and remnants huricane Bill.

Glenarm - N Ireland

Today was a great trip. Tough start in 6bf and 3+M, fairly confused
seas. Towards the afternoon we were near the Mull of Kintyre: the
winds abated somewhat, the sea got camlmer and the sun came out. Now
in Glenarm Joost is in shrts and we are enjoying a well deserved rest
in a perfectly sheltered harbour. Great evening.
Hurricane Bill's remnants are approaching, so we hav. To take it easy
step by step. No oveernight trips planned untill good windows for that
open. We are approx 110 miles N of Dublin, so end point for this week
is likely to be the SE coast of Ireland.

Islay

Monday morning. Yesterday was a very hard slog with 30kn+ winds (7bf)
on the nose in exceptionally wild, steep, breaking sea. Deck is well
washed now.
We anchored at Atos bay (Islay) and had a quiet night there. Jos
heared poroised vere nearby making big puffs.
Beatiful morning now and on the way to Port Ellen. Slight chance we
may make a dash for Ireland today, but probably better tomorrow as end
of the day promises 25knot wind and tides bere run 4kn.
Yesterday in sound of Luing we maxed 13 knots over the ground in stong
tides , impressive rips and wirls. Quite sporty!
With all forecasts for wind on the nose, the English south coast looks
very very far away right now... Logistics for team 4 can not be
determined yet, but there is a chance we will not make it farther than
Dublin.

Arrival Crew 3

Charles and Joost arrived in Oban at 15.20. We hope to leave tomorrow morning at 05.00 - 06.00 subject to weather conditions. First a glass a wine, cheese and a nice diner!

Cleaning, Checking, Planning

Checking and cleaning boat today. The weather is very 'lively' with some strong low pressure systems flying around. Squally wind conditions mean we will have to tread carefully. Joost and Charles are expected to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully two fronts connected to a depression west of Ireland will have passed us by early Sunday. That would just leave short fairly calm weather window to get to the south of the Mull of Kintyre (Islay) before it starts blowing hard again later on Sunday. You need a bit of luck...

Family vacation is over

Ann and the kids got on the train this morning. Our vacation together was a great adventure with a final highlight yesterday when Sophie and daddy hiked all the way across Karrerra Island - 16km with many hills. I am proud how well Sophie did. The island offered many fine views including a fairy-tale-like ruined castle and views of Mull. The day was complete with Ann picking us up from a remote pier which was fun and added much to the "expedition feel" of our hike.

Oban

Our last family week is 'Scottish' with persistent rain. This weekend at Loch Levin we had 45knot+ winds. Luckily while we were safely tied to the dock.
We mostly ducked the bad weather by taking the West Highland Express, first west to Glen Finnan (where 'bonnie prince Charley' landed), then to Rannoch moor, which has breathtaking nature and where you realize just how empty Scotland is. Sophie got the added excitement of seeing the 'Jacobite', a steam-train of Hogworth express fame as well as a helicopter film crew that was there to shoot the new Harry Potter film.

Sunday we stayed at a sweet mooring off Suna island to arrive in Oban early yesterday in time for some serious shopping for the girls.

We are meeting lots of nice people and experiencing the whole atmosphere here as much more sociable than what we were used to in Denmark. Participating in the West Highland Week is now firmly on our wish list. Yesterday Julia and I met with our Scottish neighbors who just spend 8 years building their own stunningly beautiful wooden 44 footer. The family then had very pleasant drinks (Oban Wisky obviously) with Hans Yntema and his sailing friend Frank. Hans is also a member of the KNR&ZV, his team is sailing around Britain in a Etap 37 and we previously met him and his daughter Nina in Lowestoft. Hans and his team are now on the way to the south coast and I hope to catch up with them again.

Today, still in Oban, we took the kids to Gforce, a nice James-Bond-like film, but produced by Pixar and about Guinea Pigs. Otherwise a few too many ice creams but we are enjoying ourselves very much, also in the knowledge that tomorrow is the last family day (!) and that daddy will have some challenging sailing ahead next week. The low pressure areas keep coming in like clockwork and virtually guarantee south winds in the Irish sea.

Loch Levi & Glen Coe

Tobermory ended with daddy and Julia witnessing the otter steal
herring from a fishing boat; quite a show!
Today we are at Loch Levin. Loch with big beautiful green mountains
that create interesting downdraft/squalls.
We are encountering serious rain for the first time. After a
leisurely start with lunch in a sweet coffee/book shop, we hiked to
the National Trust Center at Glen Coe; an impressive glen where the
leadership of the MacDonald clan was murdered at the orders of our
very William of Orange....! Now enjoying a quiet evening with the rain
droning on the deck. We are thankful for the luxury of our cabin
heater....

Family Photos!

Click on the slide show on the right to see a new set of photos...
Tobermory is a great recovery stop. The girls are shopping and happy. Sophie caught up on her vacation (arithmetic) home work. Yesterday's dinner at Fish was excellent. Most notable are the 'in harbor' wildlife sightings we did. Yesterday an otter that was not shy at all was frolicking and feeding just 50 meters away from the main boulevard with about exited tourists cheering him/her on. Today we sighted 4 dolphins jumping and playing between the moorings.

Tobermory

Today we wake up at mooring in rainy Tobermory harbour. The town looks
promising with brightly collored houses and nice looking shops. The
girls will like this.
Yesterday started in Loch Nevis. A very impressive totally remote loch
with just a few houses and 'the remotest pub in Brittain' that turned
out to be a great find.
We sailed all the way to the head of the Loch (some tricky navigation
through narrow with strong currents) and anchored to enjoy the
fantastic mountain views and total silence. Nobody there.
Our plan to then go visit the Armadale castle gardens had to be
abolished over strong Northerly winds that created a swell in Armadale
bay. At a spur we decided to use the Northerly wind (fairly rare here)
and make a dash for Tobermory. For 45 min or so we had rough waves in
wind against tide at Ardnamurchan point (no fun) but otherwise we had
a very fast beautiful 'sleigh-ride' which included blue skies,
stunning views of Sky, Rum and Egg, diving Gannets (they drop into the
sea like dive bombers) sightings of Manx Shearwaters (puffinus
puffinus) a sundowner at sea and arrival in Tobermory with a remainder
of twilight and the moon just rising above the mountains...

Otters and porpoises - Kyle of Lochalsh

Quiet weather & smooth sea helped our fauna spotting team to excell.
We spotted 3 otters and many porpoises; also, razorbills with babies
and various seals, although the latter ones did not allow us to feed
them by hand like the Gairloch seal did.
My mom's time was up and we waved her bus out just now. The fauna
spotting team is loosing its most valued member! Another problem will
now be what to do if Julia is succesful at her mackerel fishing
efforts...
The crab Julia caught yesterday got seasick over night. We had to free
it. There is some slight hope that it will recover now that it is back
in clean cold water...
Kyle of Lochalsh has an excellent supermarket (we drove cart to the
boat) and the village is not unleasant. The hotels and restaurants are
'vergane glorie' though, so yesterday we had our slightly liberal
interpretation of 'high tea' in the cockpit - glorious.
Last night we were anchored at Eilan Donan Castle: looks better on the
photos, but nice quiet mooring and beautiful loch.

Portree

Today, is the total opposite of Rona (wich is rough and deserted;
perfect place for 'retraite' / writing book) Portree is a sweet place
on sheltered bay with nice microclimate. Lots of palm trees. Sailing
race with little dingies in the bay. More peaceful than this is hard
to imagine. Lots of second homes. Two trains diaily make this a 'major
hub; 6 hours to Glasgow. We had fish and chips (9/10) at picknick
table overlooking the bay. Family decided tob move here and start
pottery business.

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Rona

Anchored at Rona in rough, fantastically beautiful secluded bay with a
view at Sky framed by series of gates formed by rough rocks and green
islands. The sense of depth is striking, augmented by the partially
clouded and partially sunny sky shedding a different, changing, light
on each island and with Sky's high, bold mountains the dark shaded
backdrop.
The wind has been changing all day, SW, SE, 5 knots, 15, 18, 10, 25,
10. Whenever we turn a corner around one of the high headlands the
wind changes.
For the first time there are other yachts anchored with us. All have
heavier anchorchan than we...
Grandma is cooking the few mackerels that we held back from the seal
yesterday. Enjoying parmazan with port in the mean time!

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Rona & grey seal

On our way to Rona ('rough island'; just east of Sky) in 15knot S
wind. Kids head great stay in Gailoch with many sightings and even
feeding of the resident seal.

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Gairloch

We (grandma, Ann, Sophie & Julia) are playing Uno in the Mountain
coffee company. Harbour seal was there again this morning. Fairy tail
walk on the beach. This pm we will collect clams and mussels at the
beach for spagetti al vongole (with mussels) tonight... Hopefully high
water will not interfere....?!

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