We spent six days and nights storm-bound in the Courtmacsherry estuary – on a sound anchorage very sheltered from the southerly gales. We got ashore with the dinghy twice and visited the village of Courtmacsherry, which has quite a few second homes, a holiday park and also a sailing school for young people. The village itself is a just a row of houses and one hotel, which, although it advertised “Meals served all day”, was closed until the start of the season. There is a small harbour with a few fishing boats and the life boat. Nothing much happens here. A resident was reputedly asked what went on here and said “Well…. the tide comes in…… and then the tide goes out.” However, at the weekend the season seemed to start; the lights came on in the hotel and we spent a very convivial evening in the Lifeboat Inn.
On Monday the wind and rain finally eased and we set sail westwards again and came to the lovely Barloge Creek. We entered through a narrow passage between rocks heaving with swell and found a very sheltered creek all to ourselves, apart from a few small fishing boats. Here is a photo of Antipole at anchor.
At the head of Barloge Creek lies the extraordinarily beautiful Lough Hyne. This is a tidal lake, connecting to the creek through a narrow passage, so the Lough is only weakly salt and has very diverse ecology, including some unique species. The connecting passage forms rapids with a direction of flow depending on the tide. On Tuesday we shot the rapids in the rubber dinghy as the water rushed into the lough. We then rowed to an island where we took sun after all that wind and rain, swam and had a picnic. We were in the company of a seal and her three pups, and one followed us in the dinghy. Back at the entrance we waited for the moment when the flow reversed – it was remarkably rapid – changing from several knots one way to several knots the other in less than five minutes. We then took the outflow back to Antipole lying out in the creek.
That evening we sailed further west past Baltimore to Clear Island – the southwest most island in Ireland.
That’s the news for now.
love to all
Ynskje & Tony