Keeping Ireland to Starboard

The 'day off' yesterday was well worth it. We were wide awake this morning and Brian was feeling a bit better.
The morning started foggy. We hoisted the main before leaving the mooring at 07.50.
We were making an early start to get to the mouth of Sligo Harbour on time as we needed the flood to go upriver to the town pontoon.

I had contacted the Harbour Master yesterday to request a berth and was advised to wait till two hours before high tide (if I remember correctly) before making our way upriver.

We had a nice beat out of the wide bay in a north westerly, barely seeing Lenadoon Point on the east side where the wind died and we had to drop the sails as we motored eastwards.

We were motoring along at about 4 knts. as we were early for the tide.
The sea was calm and the sun had come out burning away the mist. We went from oilskins to t-shirts in an hour.
The wind came back as we were crossing Dromore Bay and we hoisted sails again and soon were doing 3 knts. on a broad reach enjoying the warmth of the sun. We were in no rush.

We sailed past the Wheat Rock cardinal, past Drumcliffe and the Sligo Bay Yacht Club whose large clubhouse was hard to miss.
There was plenty of activity there as a large number of dinghies were getting reading to be launched, probably a sailing course starting.

We dropped the sails and searched for an empty mooring to attach ourselves to while we waited for the tide.
I stowed the sails and got the fenders and lines ready while Brian made a lovely lunch of eggs on toast with additions that I can’t remember but were delicious whatever they were.
We sat in the cockpit in the sun munching away as we watched the tide rushed past.

We left at 14.00 and soon realised that we’d be at the pontoon too early as the tide was carrying us along.
I throttled back until we just had steerage and meandered up the narrow but well-marked channel.
The river is up to 1.4 miles wide at this stage but the channel is no more than 180 meters wide. The depths varied from 1.2 – 2 meters under the keel. It’s only when the tide is out that you see all the lovely sticky mud waiting to catch the unaware.

Future up the tide was not as strong and we slowly increased revs to compensate.
We reached the pontoon and tied up alongside.
We later discovered that as most of the boats tied on the pontoon were much smaller than us, that the Harbour Master had rafted up some to leave us space.
I’d have hated to think what the position would have been if we arrived unannounced.

Brian and I headed up to the town to book a restaurant for tonight and took the opportunity to have a pint or two sitting beside the river.
We went back to ‘Eureka’ to get our coats as it was going to be cold when the sun went down and it was still outdoor dining only.

We celebrated our last night together at an Italian restaurant. Brian choose the wine and I drank it. The meal was lovely and we wandered contented back to Eureka and opened another bottle before finding our berths sometime in the early hours.Lue lisää