The fair weather was persisting with an anticyclone to the west of Ireland, but it was Friday. I was due back at work on Monday so it was time to be homeward bound. Just before noon at high water Paul and I slipped our mooring from the marina at Carlingford Loch and motored out into the channel. With a light and fitful easterly we had no choice but to keep motoring until in the open sea past the Haulbowline Lighthouse and out to the Hellyhunter Rock cardinal mark. Here we at last could turn off that infernal motor and hoist the main and no 1 genoa. At least the batteries were fully charged. We had thought of calling in at the Isle of Man on the way home but with these very light easterlies we could not set the desired course and would have to tack. It promised to be a long haul. So passed a slow afternoon, with about 5 knots of wind our progress was slow with our worst hourly log showing we had achieved 1.98 nautical miles in the hour. Still the sun was shining, it was warm and the sea was calm, we had no complaints. However we revised our plans abandoning a visit to the Isle of Man as we could lay a course for Anglesey.

Before dusk, Paul spotted a fin on the port side, we thought at first it was a dolphin but hold on a minute it is far too big, at least as big as our boat it, must be a whale. It swam along maintaining station about 30 metres from the boat, then sounding to reappear off the starboard bow. It kept with us for about half an hour, then we heard the throb of the engines of another boat, upon which it sounded and vanished. So still and quiet was it that although we heard clearly the other boat it never appeared over the horizon and the sound of its engines gradually faded away leaving us alone once more.

With the calm conditions cooking was no problem and the eve air so balmy we enjoyed our supper in the cockpit, after which we started a 2 hour on 2 hour off watch system, with Paul taking the first watch. When I came on deck later the moon had risen full and golden and we were sailing along its glittering path straight towards it. The wind had picked up just a little to 10 knots and with carefully trimming of the sails Dansa was sailing herself with a just bungy round the tiller. The whole thing was just truly magic, I was grinning like a maniac, oh so happy, just now where else would I want to be,. Later we raised, way off on port side the Chicken Rock light and its bearing when plotted gave us a useful check on our estimated position.

The sun when it rose did so from an empty sea, just Dansa and us with a few birds for company. Then in the distance, the unmistakable shape of Holyhead mountain and to its right Carmel head but still far off. Midmorning, the wing having gone round more northerly we hoisted the spinnaker but it was short lived. Midday and we were sitting in a flat calm, we sat hoping for awhile but then handed the sails and started motoring, after all Menai Bridge was still 18 miles away. However the gods relented and an hour later the wind was back, 10 knots from the NW. So it was up with the main and the spinnaker again. Paul and I took turns on the tiller each trying to see who could record the faster speed on the log. Point Lynas was passed and then after a run across Red Wharf bay, Dinmor buoy was abeam and we were lining the boat up for a passage through Puffin Sound. We had a slight moment here when a combination of the bumpy waves often found here and the rolling nearly had the spinnaker wrapping itself around the forestay, but we escaped that and could continue our run up the Straits on a glorious evening.

Off Beaumaris the wind left us, never mind we were almost within sight of the mooring so down came the sails and on with the motor. 7 pm Saturday and we picked up the mooring. We had run 98 miles in 31 hours, hardly a record breaking passage but it had been a good trip and I wouldn’t be late back for work. Not like last time I’d been in Ireland, but that is another story.

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