5. Republic of Ireland 2012  

After Isle of Man we went directly to Dublin, the capitol of the Republic of Ireland. Here most of the crew left to go back to Sweden. Martin and I continued south along the coast to Crosshaven. We stopped in Wicklow and anchored outside Dungarvan where we explored the wild coast with our dinghy. In Cork we picked up our next guest.

We stayed in the marina of Dublin for a few days. Dublin is full of very old and traditional pubs. Fitzgeralds, from 1832, had fantastic Irish Coffee. Of course we also had to visit the Guinness brewery and bye a souvenir for our bar.

This is what a group of young Irish sailers left after a late night party in the marina. I see Heinecken and Budweiser but not many Irish bottles !

In Dublin you can visit the Irish National Wax Museum. Very nice with many interesting characters. Do you recognize these two ? (Right answer down at the end of the log book)

Tove and our friends left us in Dublin to return to Sweden. Martin and I continued southward for Cork, where we would pick up new crew a week later. On our way to Cork we stopped for a couple of days in Wicklow which turned out to be a very nice little town.

Bird of passage in Wicklow harbour well protected by the long pier.

The pier is full of ships paintings. This is a very old tradition in some harbours. Here is one of the artists.

Birdie's first mate inspecting Wicklow harbour.

Main street in Wicklow. Inside a Wicklow bookshop.

Another artist. This one is painting the walls of our lunch resturant.

We left Wicklow for Cork. The tidal current along the coast is strong. As you see, the SPEED (log) is 6.2 knots while SOG (speed over ground) is 9 knots. 11.5 the depth !

The south coast of Ireland is dramatically beautiful. The sea has created fantastic shapes. Here is a narrow rift that we investigated using the dinghy to get ashore.

Martin went in first. Beautiful, isn't it ?

There were no signs of human visits, only the normal garbage you will find on any tidal shore.

At last we found traces of human activity in a small cave. Somebody had squeezed a red ball in between two rocks. At high water the cave is submerged so the ball has to be under water, several hours each day. We found another ball and managed to get it stuck just above the red one. I wonder how long time it will take before somebody else discovers this strange arrangement ?

Two natural stone bridges. I woldn't like to be here in rough weather.

As the sun went down we left the shore and headed for Birdie. Here she is, anchored in shallow water, waiting for the dinghy to return.

Dungarvan is only one day from Crosshaven. We passed Ballycotton Island in good weather and went upp to Crosshanven in Owenboy River.

There are several marinas in this river and it is also possible to get a buoy to a lower price. Here we met two Swedish boats, Balance and Aniara who joined us over the Biscay a few days later. Aniara hurried on to the Caribbean but we would meet Balance again in Portugal and in Las Palmas.

Next day we motored up to Cork to pick up Martin's second cousin Manne. We waited a few days in Crosshaven to get good weather and then left for the long trip across the Biscay to la Coruna in Spain, 600 nautical miles.

The two characters from the National Wax Museum are Oscar Wilde, born in Dublin 1854 and Gollum from J.R. Tolkiens trilogy The Lord of the Rings.