Many months ago a bunch of my old college friends planned and booked a sailing training weekend at Glenans Irish Sailing Club in Baltimore. For USA readers this is the Baltimore in West Cork and not the one in Maryland! It is a stunning small harbour town in West Cork with lots of small interesting Islands close by making it a very interesting and popular sailing location. There were eight of us on the trip, three being very good sailors and five novices (including myself) all arriving on Friday evening from all over the place (Dublin, Offaly, Wicklow, Munich and Somerset). Last time we were all in the same place was Gwen and my wedding in 2002 so there was a lot of catching up to do which was subsequently done at Bushes Bar over some really epic pints of Murphys. I say epic as sitting outside looking out onto the harbour and beautiful scenery with eight really good old friends that they could only be brilliant pints. The catching up and craic continued at the sailing club into the wee hours of the morning over a sing song with Patchy and John leading on the guitars.
As you can imagine it was a slow and groggy start for most of us on Saturday morning and probably not the best conditition to experience one's first ever sailing lesson but the sea air definitely helped. We had three crews in three boats (Captain Patchy with Stephen and Donal, Captain Paschal with John and me and Captain Rory with Mark (Huck)) The third crew only need two members since they were so good! Anyway it was a great day out and I certainly learned a lot about sailing from the master (Paschal). We sailed out to Heir Island for lunch on a deserted beach then out around Cape Clear Island and out a bit into the Atlantic where we came back into the Harbour mouth and home again. We saw lots of seals and at one stage a bunch of dolphins swam closely past us. It was however when we were out in the Atlantic that the wind completely died down and it took us (well some of us!) forever to make it back home again. We ended up bobbing and drifting around for so long that we eventually had to radio back to base for a tow! Rory and Mark made it back just fine and Patchy's crew would have too but they hung around in the harbour waiting for us so got "calmed" too. Rory and Mark were of course very humble in the fact that they managed to sail perfectly fine with no wind but we all know that their boat had a secret engine somewhere on board.
After dinner at Glenans it was more good pints at Bushes Pub and lots of good banter about the day's adventures. The craic was good but it was a relatively early night for everyone.
Weather on Sunday morning was amazing but our captains were a bit concerned about the lack of wind that we did not take the boats out again. Plan B was taking a ferry to Sherkin Island and having a pint at the Jolly Roger. Absolutely brilliant weekend had by all and plans are already in the works for another get together.
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| "The Sailors" Stephen, John, Mark, Rory, Donal, me, Paschal and Patrick |
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| "The sailors" Paschal, Mark (Huck), Rory, Stephen, Donal, John and me at Bushes Pub after a good day's sailing (and towing!) Video of Rory and Mark navigating the treacherous winds! |
