Leg 12, here we go. This week we are joined by Gerard, Neill, Marie-Claire, Jodie and Barbara, with Chris from Skandia. We also have John Pullen on board (Karen’s husband), which is fantastic! We started off in Bangor, with a dinner with Peter and Gillian from Northern Ireland Cancer Fund For Children. They have been incredible with our entire Belfast visit, helping us out whenever needed and welcoming us. The young people we have on board this week are all through NICFFC and are really an incredible group of people. Thank you to NICFFC for all the help and making our Belfast visit so special.
We set sail on Thursday afternoon, headed down to coast to Ardglass. This was our final Irish stopover (can’t believe it), and was a really pretty little port. The marina was quite tight, but they welcomed us in and very kindly let us berth for free for the night – thank you Ardglass! Our sail was unfortunately not much on the sailing front (what wind there was was right on the nose), so we motored most of the way, getting in at around 8:30pm. After a peaceful night in Ardglass with lots of card games going on, we set sail again in the morning, headed for our next country, the Isle of Man. It was such a beautiful day, with hardly any clouds in the sky, giving great visibility of both the Island and the mountains on the Irish shore. With a light southerly breeze we managed to reach across the Irish Sea and had an absolutely fantastic day out sailing, with Gerard hard out on lookout for sharks (still haven’t seen any yet), but we did see quite a few porpoises and had the usual birdlife to appreciate. We headed round the south side of the Island, and passed through Calf Sound, between the Isle of Man and the Calf of Man, a little island to the south. The sound is quite narrow and has quite a strong tide running through it, but with light winds and calm seas we were able to cut through the sound without any problems. Even then it was quite something to see, and I can imagine that it gets incredibly rough when the wind and swell picks up.
Port St Mary’s is our harbour for the night, and we are moored up next to a fishing vessel and along the harbour wall. Chris, being a local IOM man, has been our on board info guide, pointing out places of interest and even filling us in on a little island history. After a long day on the water I was quite impressed with Barbara, who wasted no time at all in getting dinner on the go.
We’re on the island for a few days now and plan to cruise around the island, exploring all her ports. This is also the most popular spot for seeing basking sharks – so we will be out on the water looking for sharks in the morning, really hoping to see one. We’re off to Douglas tomorrow which will be a nice little hop up the coast.
From a beautiful island, goodnight!
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