Sailing to Inishmore Aran Islands County Galway Republic of Ireland

The alarms went off at 0500hrs and 30 minutes later we had the engine running and were raising anchor. Inishmore is 85nm from Valentia so we needed to start early to arrive in daylight (though, happily the days are long at present, sunrise being at 0500ish and sunset at 2200ish). The wind was stronger than we had expected outside the harbour entrance, so we went with a single reefed main, staysail and 3 rolls in the genoa because the wind was westerly, not southwesterly, as forecast. Where have we heard that before?!

The Blasket Islands. Great Blasket Island to the right and Inishnabro to the left

It took us several tacks to make it to the Blasket Islands, during which time we enjoyed the company of plenty of guillemots and lots and lots of dolphins.

Inishnabro with the arch and Tear Aght Island in the distance

The arch on Inishnabro, Inishtooskert in the distance, and the western tip of Great Blasket Island to the right

By the time we reached the Blaskets, though, the wind was either dying or being blanketed by the islands; it wasn’t clear which.

The Wild Atlantic Way - the western tip of Great Blasket Island

In hindsight it was the latter because after wallowing around and tacking backwards and forwards for far too long, we got through the channel between Great Blasket and Inishnabro, to find that the wind was still around 12kt.

The north side of the Dingle peninsula

So we let out and hoisted all sail and set off, but still quite slowly, to the northeast. By 1000hrs the wind was still pretty gentle from the west – a broad reach – and with the swell shaking the wind from the sails we weren’t making fast enough progress. As a result, the next few hours were ‘engine on, engine off’ as the wind died and then filled in again. Eventually, at about 1400hrs, the wind remained strong enough to sail, albeit it started from the southwest, so we rigged up the spinnaker pole and poled out the genoa, only for the wind to move round to the northwest within about an hour. That meant we needed to take the spinnaker pole down again and restow all of the lines. However, from then on we made good progress.

In Gregory Sound, looking to our left at Innishmore

We entered Gregory Sound, the passage between Inishmore and Inishmaan islands, shortly before 2100, over an hour before sunset. The views of the cliffs and the beaches whilst we reached up the sound in about 18kts of breeze were fantastic and the geology quite unusual with wide flat slabs of stone on the foreshore.

Motoring into Killeany Bay with a rainbow almost touching the lighthouse on Straw Island

Shortly afterwards we motored into Killeany Bay, where we anchored off the yacht moorings just outside Kilronan harbour. It had been a long day but we’d made a good leap north and were looking forward to exploring Inishmore.

Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Republic of Ireland