Sweltering Derrynane

I woke up to a beautiful morning and as it was early I read for a while until I heard Brian moving around.
We had breakfast in the cockpit and then began preparing to depart the anchorage.

The anchor had dug in too well and we had to manouvour a little under engine until it broke out.
We were on our way by 08.50 following 'Second Chance' out past Piper Sound into the open sea.

The wind was very light and after trying to sail for a bit, we had to motorsail with just the main up for the first hour and a half, then we had a nice broad reach to Dursey Sound where we furled the genny and heaved to waiting for ‘Second Chance’ to catch up. Jim had tried to sail without the engine so had fallen back.

They had never been through the sound before, so we lead the the way.
While I know it says in the sailing directions that the cable car that crosses the sound is much higher than ‘Eureka’s’ mast, I still slowed as I could see the car was going to be right over us as we approached.
From deck level everything looks much lower or is it the mast looks much taller, or is it both?

On the north side of the sound the wind was behind us and we tried goose-winging for a bit before going on a broad reach and gybing later to make Derrynane.
We slowly went through the narrow entrance to Derrynane harbour keeping the leading marks in line and picked up a visitors mooring at 14.45.

We changed to shorts as it was very hot but the seagulls were blinded by our legs which were still a brilliant white.
After lunch we went ashore and visited the grounds of Daniel O’Connell’s house but didn’t go in. Later we went hunting for a standing stone before heading back on board for dinner.
Everyone on ‘Eureka’ was snoring by 22.00 and looking forward to more great weather tomorrow.Read more