Shortly after completing the blog entry below in Baltimore, Saturday, three natural phenomena took us by surprise.

The wind shifted suddenly to the West - the only direction from which this lovely natural harbour is not protected. We were abruptly rocked by short, hard waves that came at Dark Star's stern like canons, and the boat was jerked violently up and down.

At the same time, the sun came out - not brilliantly, but it was strange to see this watery golden light after all the rain. And the air mass blowing over took a radical turn towards dryness, with the humidity that had been hovering about 80% suddenly dropping to as low as 70%! Things that had been wet for days started to dry.

Charlie took a few snapshots of this suddenly changed harbour scene, and then I did something I've never done before - I went to the pub for a shower! Bushe's bar has a sign outside saying 'Showers Available' (also 'Bar Food' and 'Fine Beer', but these are less comment-worthy), and indeed they do! Two clean cubicles, to the right of the bar and just before the area where the spare paint cans and odd bar stools are kept. These were our first warm showers of this voyage -the cold shower in Kinsale hardly counted - and were very welcome

The musician playing at Jacob's bar (the promised 'live music') was called Hank something - hardly the Irish traditional music we'd been hoping for, so after a pint while we sat in the bar for our hair to dry, we decided to spend our evening on board.

We cooked the wonderful mussels we'd bought at the farmers market in cider, with chillies and fresh basil (Somerset Thai style!), and scarfed them down accompanied by wonderful chips from the local chip van.

In case you think all this cosiness is leading somewhere romantic, let me tell you that we slept on separate berths in the boat's main cabin. The choppy waves slapping on the sugar scoop (low platform on the back of the boat ) gave the boat a bang and a shudder, like being hit repeatedly by an angry fist, so there was no question of sleeping in the double (well, nearly double!) bunk in the stern cabin. And Pierre, our French neighbour aboard Aquila, finally left at about 5.30 am, so it wasn't the most restful of nights. However, the wind did ease by morning.