Finding Ciúnas

Brian was up first and headed for the showers while I sat in the cockpit watching the river flow by as I ate my breakfast.
I later took my turn in the showers and we were ready to get going at 11.00.

Typical! Nice bit of wind as we headed downriver but once we had room to play with the sails, the wind had almost disappeared.
We sailed along doing about 3 knots for 2 to 3 hours. We were going to miss the tidal gates further along the coast unless we speeded up so we had to turn on the engine.

As we approached Rosslare, the inbound Stena ferry crossed our bows about 4 miles distant. Shortly afterwards the 'Oscar Wilde' was beginning it's journey to France just as we about to cross the shipping lane.
I kept an eye on her as we crossed the lane and increased speed to get fully across before she got too near. All was looking good and then she turned . . . . towards us!
We increased speed again but she didn't get any closer than a mile and we slowly pulled away on slightly different courses.

We turned west at Carnsore Point and the wind picked up at last. We unfurled the genny and motorsailed towards St. Patrick's Bridge between the Saltee Islands. The tide had turned against us and the currents were shaking Eureka from side to side as we approached the gap, just like it does in East Ferry.

We furled the genny and soon after dropped the main as we headed north west towards Kilmore Quay.
We hung fenders off both sides as we didn't know what side we'd be tied up.
Once inside the harbour we saw we'd have to raft up and I picked a nice big yacht that looked like it wasn't going anywhere soon to tie onto. We were able to step ashore by 19.50.

The harbour office was pointed out to us and we caught the Harbour Master just before he went home and handed over our life savings..
We walked up the road to Keogh's pub for pints and food and both offerings were excellent.

We headed back at closing time and had a wee drop of port for medicinal purposes before hitting the sack. The Jura whisky was staying sealed until I got home.

Oh! . . . . Ciúnas??
Well Ciúnas was my first yacht. She is a Splinter 21 and I bought her in East Ferry back in 1988. I wasn't living in Cobh at the time and I think my first visit to East Ferry was to view her.
She then crossed the harbour to Drake's Pool until 1993 when I moved to Cobh and ended up back in East Ferry for a second time.

At the end of the 1995 season I put her up for sale and she disappear, I believe to Kinsale for a while but I hadn't seen her since she was sold.
There were two Splinters in Dun Laoghaire and Brian and I were surprised at how small they were now that we had got used to bigger boats.
But as we walked up the marina towards the exit I saw another one with a blue hull, Ciúnas's was red and I said to Brian, "we haven't seen a Splinter for years and now we've seen three in the last few days, look she even has mushroom vents where Ciúnas had them".

It slowly dawned on me that I had put those vents on Cíunas. I went around to the stern and saw the name Ciúnas was still there. It was MY Ciúnas.
I left a message for the new owner on her and took a few photos. Amazing, twenty three years later and there she was.Read more