our home berth after fi ve lengthy passages. Once again we had
uncomfortable conditions during our return leg from Baltimore
to Lawrence Cove when we found ourselves cruising in dense fog
for three hours before eventually reaching the sanctuary of
Berehaven. We were reliant on our chart-plotter and radar, which
on one occasion alerted us to the presence of a fi shing vessel less
than 50 yards away that was invisible to the naked eye!
Unsettling as these experiences were they all helped to build
our confi dence and shape what was to become our biggest
challenge to date – a complete circumnavigation of Ireland.
In truth, it had been on my bucket list for a couple of years but it
certainly wasn’t on Mary’s. I began the research and planning
during winter 2017/2018. I sourced a copy of the ICC (Irish
Cruising Club) Sailing Directions: North & East Coasts of
Ireland and acquired the additional Imray charts that would
give us complete coverage of the entire coastline of Ireland.
I selected 19 preferred ports of call for the journey with
an upper limit on passage distance of 70nm. Using Garmin’s
HomePort software, in conjunction with the ICC books and
http://www.eOceanic.com and http://www.malinwaters.com websites, I
created the necessary routes, which I then uploaded to our trusty
Garmin 750s chartplotter. The good news was that Mary had
also now retired, meaning that for the fi rst time since we started
cruising together we didn’t have to return to base by mid-August.
We set off on the 25 June and 11 hours later arrived in Kilrush
marina. It was a long, tiring day with a hugely satisfying
outcome. We were perfectly positioned to kick-off
our 2018 Coastal Cruise with what looked like a ten-day window
of low winds. Little did we know then that the ten days would
turn into 30 days of ideal cruising conditions for our 41-year-old
motorboat and that it would be 90 days before we made our
return to Kilrush after completing our circumnavigation.
What followed over the next three weeks exceeded my wildest
dreams. In 21 days we completed eight passages, cruising at
7-8kts along Ireland’s coast, spanning 383 nautical miles.
CRUISINGT O P Killybegs town with the new marina on the left A B O V E L E F T Refuelling at Kilmore
Quay A B O V E RIGHT Slieve League – passed en route to KillybegsApproaching the
striking Shannonbridge