Intrepid Travels
| Vessel Name: | Intrepid Elk |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Outremer catamaran 51 |
| Hailing Port: | Fremantle |
| Crew: | Robert and Revle Elks |
16 May 2017
Cherbourg encore
We are reunited with Intrepid Elk after a winter/summer separation and it is good to be home again. IE has had a facelift and her shiny white hulls are dazzling once more. She has a beautiful new bimini (shade cover) over the helm seat, which Robert designed and which was fabricated in Portsmouth and [...]
06 October 2016
IE preparation for winter
Our sailing days for this year are over and we are once again busy getting IE ready for a winter in the northern hemisphere. This year, she will be in the water for most of the time, with a short interlude on land in a large painting shed, where she will have her hulls painted. In order to get her into [...]
30 September 2016
Cherbourg, France
It was an inky black moonless night as we slipped out of the river and across the sand bar with fishing vessel Emma Louise behind us. Revle was on the bowsprit with a spotlight looking for hazards ahead. I was at the helm, peering at our chartplotter and concentrating on following our inward track. [...]
22 September 2016
Plymouth
We made a motoring passage of 35 miles to Plymouth Sound, then battled against strong currents up the Tamar River to an anchorage at West Mud where we spent a peaceful night. Plymouth has been a major naval base for centuries and we had some close encounters with modern navy ships in the harbour. We [...]
18 September 2016
Falmouth
Our passage to Falmouth took us past The Lizard, a projecting headland with a ferocious tidal race. We passed a little too close and got caught in the race which was too bumpy for comfort. Approaching the Falmouth harbour, we had the excitement of crossing our track from June 2015 when we made landfall [...]
17 September 2016
Newlyn
We left the Isles of Scilly early in the morning to catch a light northerly wind to Land's End and the fishing port of Newlyn, just south of Penzance. We couldn't believe our luck, having another gentle passage through one of the most treacherous and notorious waterways in northern Europe. We galloped [...]
Dingle
Dingle is famous for its music and Irish culture. We went to two wonderful musical performances of Irish music by some very talented musicians. One of them played the traditional uilleann pipes, the Irish version of the better known bagpipes. Wind is generated not from the lungs but from a diaphragm squeezed under the arm.
For the last 30 years Dingle has gained a huge boost in tourists from a friendly dolphin named Fungie. Many Fungie sightseeing boats have sprung up as this old man dolphin will reliably appear at the mouth of the bay whenever a boat passes, so they confidently offer a money back guarantee if Fungie does not appear!
We took a bus to the end of the Dingle Peninsular and did a 15 km walk back on the most beautiful coastal scenery, including Great Blasket Island the site of filming of some of the scenes in Ryan's Daughter from the 70s. The scenery was made more dramatic due to a big swell from an angry North Atlantic.
Our last day in Dingle was very dramatic as a storm passed over and we had wind speeds reaching a maximum of 55.3 kn. Poor Intrepid Elk was straining against every mooring line we had as the wind tried to tear her away from the pontoon.
