Clifden Bay

The overnight rain had stopped by the time we woke the next morning and it was warm, even in the strong breeze.
Only for the forecast I'd be casting off and heading out to sea.
Today is Monday and it looks like we'll be staying put till Wednesday when the wind is due to drop in the morning but otherwise the weather is pleasant.

When we went ashore we met Jackie Ward who is the 'welcoming committee' for the boat club.
He appears in the book I'm reading at the moment which is on loan from Jim and it seems he meets most boats that arrive in Clifden.
He opened up one of the rooms so that we could leave our oilskins and lifejackets safely inside and showed us where they hide the key but we're sworn to secrecy under pain of a keelhauling.

It was nice and warm once we were out of the breeze. We walked into Clifden taking it in turns to carry the empty gas cylinder.
I found a coffee shop and had a coffee and doughnut, Brian had the healthy option, just a cup of tea.
We rang the man with the gas and organised to collect a bottle from his shop which was closed due to covid, before we did the provisioning and then got a taxi back to the club.
We left our shopping inside until we were ready to collect it later and returned in the taxi back into Clifden where we found a lovely traditional pub and sat outside it in the sun…..yes sun!

Bernie, the barmaid took a shine to Brian and the slagging between them had me holding my sides with the laughter.
In fairness she treated most of the customers in the same friendly way, but Brian was giving as good as he was getting which only encouraged her.

We wandered further down the town and had dinner outside before returning to ‘Eureka’ and almost straight to bed.

Clifden is a great place to be weather-bound!Read more