Glengarriff Bay County Cork Republic of Ireland

On Saturday 24 May we woke to the beginnings of rain and the early sounds of increasing winds; a day on board doing chores was the plan. After my previous work changing the seals, the aft heads seemed to be working well but before committing it to full use I thought I’d do a final test with a blob of toilet tissue…. a very silly mistake as whilst the pump was working fine, the blob of tissue completely blocked the outflow pipe (aaaaarrrrgggghhh!!!). So working on that became the top priority. I spent the morning removing the end of the efflux hose from the stopcock, after which it was quite easy to clear the blockage. Unfortunately, I had to cut the end off the hose to reconnect it to the stopcock, which means that it is now too short for that to be done again should the heads block once more.  We will have to source some marine sanitary hose as a spare (not an easy task in Ireland). The rest of the day was spent with much nicer admin and minor maintenance chores.

Our anchorage looking much brighter on Sunday

Having spent Saturday on board sheltering from the rain and wind we wanted to get ashore and were very pleased to wake up on Sunday to see the weather looking much brighter. After breakfast we bailed out the dinghy and went ashore to do the walk recommended to us by Allan and Claire on board Moonstone of Aberdour.

Looking out across the bay from the coastal path.  Blue Velvet is the furthest yacht (left of centre)

From the steps where we left our dinghy we followed a lovely coastal path that took us up to Glengarriff village; much nicer than walking along the busy road. 

The Blue Pool

Just before we reached Glengariff, the path took us to the Blue Pool, one of the stopping points on the Wild Atlantic Way.  We could see across to the dock where the Garinish Island ferry picks up its passengers and a small bridge got us onto the rhododendron covered promontory.

The Garinish Island ferry leaving the Blue Pool

It was well worth the 10-minute detour to walk around the promontory…

Blue Velvet at anchor with Garinish Island just behind her

… and we were spoilt with more views out across the bay towards where Blue Velvet was anchored.

The view from Lady Bantry’s Lookout

But our real objective was to walk a few kilometres west and up to Lady Bantry’s Lookout, so we walked through the village and out to a small road leading to Glengariff Woods where we found there’s a lot of work ongoing to remove the non-indigenous spruce trees and rhododendrons and to replace them with oak and other native deciduous trees. Along the way we met a surprising number of people, including Allan and Claire who were doing ‘our’ walk in reverse.  The scenery was lovely, ranging from rugged, rocky hills, to ‘oceanic deciduous woodland’ to open meadows and small rivers.  There was something for everyone and we were very lucky that the forecast showers generally held off for the day.

Back in the village we checked out the bus stops for the local bus to Bantry and blacked our noses at Quills, a well-known chain of woollen shops, but we weren’t tempted to make a purchase.

We got back to Blue Velvet just before a big rain shower hit after which there was a full rainbow visible. Beautiful!

The forecast continues to have strong winds and rain but we are hoping to find a window which will allow us to move over to Bantry to restock the fridge and do the laundry.  

Glengarriff Bay, County Cork, Republic of Ireland