Kinvara

Heading for the finish line!

Preparing to come alongside in Kinvara

Kinvara is a great port of call for us – always enjoyable to tie up and stroll around the village, pop into one of the many local pubs or restaurants. We try to always get there for the weekend of Crinniu na mBad – the gathering of the boats which takes place in August every year. It is a traditional boat fest, and fibre glass yots are not really top of the pecking order that week (or many another week in Connamara) but we carry on regardless. The Baid mor, leath Bhaid, and gleoteoig are a great sight under full canvas, particulary if we are sailing across the bay as a number of them are making the same journey from ports further west. Their tan or black lug sails are one of the most evocative sights one can see on the bay. Stong seaworthy working vessels sailed by sailors with great local knowledge.

Normally it is a straightforward sail from GBSC westwards past Kilcolgan point, then southwards until we clear Island Eddy, south eastwards then to the mouth of the bay and then due south to Kinvara Harbour. if the west wind is blowing hard, it pays to give Kilcolgan point a wide berth – waves breaking on its sloping shore can catch an unsuspecting boat broadside on, even a half mile off. The only other test is to find Cockle Rock (North Cardinal Mark)on the way home as a course south of Cockle leads straight onto St Brendan’s Reef – to be avoided!!
In 2006, filled with enthusiasm and little know how, we sailed over for the Crinniu with the skipper announcing that we would stay on anchor overnight and return the following morning. Sail over went grand and we met up with friends and relatives once ashore and the celebrations began. Sitting down to a few after dinner pints, it began to dawn on me that our anchorage would dry out leaving us heeled over on a mud berth – no danger but not too comfortable with the four of us on board. So up I get from the festivities, mutter “be back in a while” and with the help of brother Tom and nephew Tom, we move ND further offshore. However we did not achieve any great increase in depth, so we needed to find another solution. We went back to the pier in our dinghy and discussed tieing outside Jimmy in his hooker Cliona. Some of his crew were very wary of this, pointing out that we were both going to dry out and that we could possibly fall under Cliona or be caught under her if we started to float before she did. Hmmmmm…
Went back to the restaurant and told the crew “come on we are going to have to move the boat..” they were none too impressed as it was now well dark and they were getting nice and comfortable. Off we went and tried to find ND in the unlit harbour gloom. Then hauled anchor and started up engine. Now the only problem was that there was a great big bloody fish farm spread out somewhere in front of us – no problem to avoid during the day but could we do so at night??
I thanked my lucky stars that I had had my Garmin GPS recording our track on the way in so we simply reversed our track and retraced our course. Dropped anchor when we had sufficient depth to do so ( I would estimate we had to motor in excess of a mile) and then settled down for a nice comfortable snooze. It was definitely the right thing to do but I should have done it a lot earlier… we live and learn!!

Laoise on the bow

Hookers racing past ND on anchor