Hey there! We’re in Ireland! After a confusing 8 day passage we sailed past the famous (notorious) Fastnet Rock and into Baltimore in county Cork on the southern end of the island. This Baltimore has a great harbor, fun and interesting folks and good stout.

Let’s start with the passage. Well, we started off in fine fettle on a good close reach but by the second day we were motorsailing looking for a better wind. We didn’t find any but we found where it was! Somewhere way to the northwest of us was a low, and while we didn’t get the wind, we got the waves. A big, lumpy, rolling swell right on our port beam. Boy did we wallow around. For three days we struggled in light air heading north until finally on the 6th day we got the wind from that low. Then all was forgiven and we cruised the last 300 nm on a sweet beam reach under all plain sail. We entered Baltimore Bay with the sun setting over the western shore.

So here we are eight days later still in Baltimore. We’ve hiked out to the point to see the pillar called Lot’s Wife, and toured the restored castle of the O’Driscoll clan, we took the bus up to Skibereen to the grocery and the Chandlery and the Post Office. I got a hair cut there as well. We toured the historic places involved in the famine of 1845-50 and ran into our friend Sean (our bar keep at the Algiers in B’more) at his favorite pub in Skibereen.

We put fuel in the boat which was an adventure in itself. The wharf looms about 25 feet above our deck so we had to position ourselves by the ladder and climb up to tie-off the boat. It gave me a chance to get a good look at the rigging though. The best part though was Kirin, the man who ran the fuel truck. He recently retired from the position of coxswain on the lifeboat here in town and he regaled us with tales of the rescues they have performed. I was most excited that he was cox’n during the infamous Fastnet race of 1979 where several boats were abandoned and lives were lost. His boat brought two boats in and saved a dozen crewmen. I wrote a very well received paper on the meteorological manifestation of that event while at U.M.

Many of the people here are summer residents and they have been helpful in suggesting places to visit. The year-round population is only 350, and everyone is friendly and interested in our adventure, many of them active or retired watermen themselves. Their stories are just as fun for us as well. Who knew the Irish love to tell stories? Oh, about the puzzles: We have several books of The New York Times crosswords on board and when we left Beaufort, N.C. we opened “Wednesday Crossword Omnibus” and during our watches Nancy and I completed the last one as we dropped the hook in Ireland. So now we know a French tire is a pneu, a portmanteau is an oleo and all sorts of very important bits of knowledge.

The other day we took a dinghy trip up the Ilen (eyelen) river to O’Donovan’s boatyard to see about storing ZEPHYR there for the winter while we travel overland. What a great trip that was! 5 miles up a winding waterway lined with ruined abbeys and castles overgrown with ivy. Beautiful fields filled with cows and cottages. The boat yard is the place for the fishing trawlers to get repaired and there were a few, like our boat, that can only get there at high tide! Across the creek is the only yard in Ireland that still builds and restores wooden boats. Hegarty’s is truly a trip back in time. Even the equipment is from the 19th century! The waterfront is lined with old trawlers that have seen their last catch but are still works of art. I was in heaven and Nancy took some sweet photos. The return trip down river was even more exciting: We had wind in our faces against the ebbing tide/current. The standing chop was a challenge. We had to go fast enough to stay on plane and skim the waves but slow enough that we didn’t get wet when the spray flew up. We had a blast! Oh yeah and it was misting and 55 degrees out on the water. It was blowing 15-18kts when we got to the boat and many of the youth sailors in their lasers and 420s were capsizing left and right in the gusts. A toddy and a shower on ZEPHYR and all was right again with the world.

Today it is blustery so we’ve been doing some maintenance, some laundry and making water. Tomorrow or Sunday we will continue our crawl around the West Coast to Castletown Bere and on to the Arran Islands. We’ll be on the boat until mid September so come on over and sail with us. Keep in touch and follow along. Cheers, ZEPHYR.