Two mates and a boat

Another lovely hot morning. I chilled out around the house while Brian was out walking his dog.

It was about 41 years ago that Brian took me out in his family's sailing dinghy in Monkstown, Co. Cork and got me hooked on sailing and off we were going again all these years later.

Brian thought that it might be a good idea to visit the supermarket before heading to Dun Laoghaire. He was going to do the cooking onboard so who was I to interfere?

At the marina we filled the water tanks and went to the fuel berth to fill up, then we waved goodbye to Brenda and headed out.
We hoisted the main but the winds were very light so we headed south under engine without unfurling the genny.

After three hours the wind increased and we were able to unfurl the genny and turn off the engine but it wasn't to last and after an hour or so the genny was furled again and the engine was back on. We tried to fool ourselves by leaving the main up but we reached Arklow without using it for its intended purpose, to drive the boat.

We tied up at the last free berth on the pontoon in Arklow at 20.00 and headed ashore and just made it just in time for last orders in 'Christy's'.
The staff were great and very understanding in feeding two hungry sailors when they should probably have been going home.

We had two pints each before we headed back to Eureka where I had to put Brian to bed suffering from the latest case of fresh air sickness and I found I had a mild dose of it as well.Read more