Sleepy Ardglass

It was about 01.00 as I began to cross Belfast Lough which was very busy with two outbound ferries and one inbound, this time they were well lit. The cruise ship 'Marco Polo was also well lit as it headed north up the Irish Sea but that was well off to my port.

It was beginning to get bright when I was passing Rigg Bank, just south of the lough but the traffic was not finished with me. I had to charge course to keep out of the way of a container ship heading north and there were also a few trawlers around just to keep things interesting.

It was time to decide where I going to tie up.
Ideally I'd like to have kept going until the late afternoon. Howth was still about 15 hours away. While it would still be light when I'd arrive, it was too far. Carlingford was another 10 hours but the entrance was only passable at the right state of tide and my timing would be wrong this time.
So instead seeing I was beginning to feel a little tired, I decided cut the day short and to head for Ardglass which was about 4 hours away.

It appeared that Ardglass was still asleep when I arrived but as I approached the marina I saw a couple sitting having breakfast in the cockpit of a nice wooden yacht and they interrupted their breakfast to assist me in tieing up at 08.00.
It turn out he was Dutch and she was a Dub and they planned to head to Dublin later in the morning.

Even though it was lovely and sunny even at that hour, I headed down below to get some zzzzz's and didn't wake until noon.

I headed up to the office to report in, pay and have a shower before going for a walk.
I found a nice restaurant called 'Blue Donkey' close to the marina and had a coffee and cake followed by a visit to the supermarket for milk and bread.

Back on Eureka I sat in the sun and checked the tides and made a passage plan for tomorrow's journey south. I planned to make the next stop Dun Laoghaire.

I cheated a bit on dinner. It was one of those pasta meals, just add water, then I had an early night before an early start tomorrow.Read more