Brooding Skillig Michael

Today we planned on rounding Skellig Michael before heading to Knightstown.
Unfortunally there was no sun coming in the hatch when we woke up and when we stuck our heads out to see why, we were greeted by a cold overcast windy day. After good weather over the last three days, I thought we were in for a bit of nice settled weather. No such luck.

We cast off from the mooring at 08.10, shortly after Second Chance and followed them out through the narrow exit and hoisted the main once we had a bit of sea room. At least we had no shortage of wind and the direction also suited us.
We put a reef in the main as we hoisted it and kept some of the genny furled.

We had a quick reach out with the wind blowing 20 knots from the south. This later increased to 30 knts so we made great time out and we had to furl the genny to round the Skellig slowly in order to have a good look for Luke Skywalker.
Didn’t see Luke but the monks huts were impressive as were the steps up to them.
I don’t think I’ll ever have the nerve to climb to the top.
The island looked dark and brooding due to the lack of sun unlike last year when I rounded it in bright sunshine.

We left out about two thirds of the genny and continued on to Valentia on a broad reach doing over 7 knots and exceeding hull speed at times.
When we got north of Valentia Island the wind suddenly began gusting strongly (downdraughts?) and we quickly dropped the sails, at the same time radioing ‘Second Chance’ to warn them so that they were prepared when they arrived.
We tied up to the pontoons in Knightstown Harbour in gusty conditions and assisted ‘Second Chance’ when they arrived soon after.

We had lunch before wandering up to explore the village.
Knightstown looked like the poster child for the Tidy Towns. It was so nice and clean that we were nearly checking to make sure we weren’t leaving any footprints on the ground as we walked around.

Later it was back to Second Chance for drinks as they have the tent which kept out most of the wind before returning to Eureka for our own dinner and due to the weather we headed to bed about 22.00.Read more