Tern's Travels

Pacific Seacraft 37

Vessel Name: Tern
Vessel Make/Model: Pacific Seacraft Crealock 37
Hailing Port: Falmouth UK
Crew: Larry & Manice Stabbins
04 July 2022 | Dingle, Kerry, Ireland
11 June 2022 | Cahergal Ring Fort, overlooking Valencia
11 June 2022 | On Sneem Sculpture trail
18 May 2022 | Dursey Sound cable car support
12 May 2022 | The Italian garden at Garinish Island
12 May 2022 | Live fowl for sale in Bantry market- you can buy almost anything!
10 May 2022 | Berehaven
10 May 2022 | Baltimore
10 May 2022 | Kinsale
08 February 2022 | Fishguard to Falmouth
07 February 2022 | Isle of Man
06 February 2022 | Tern at anchor between Erraid, Mull and Iona
27 December 2021 | Small Isles
28 September 2021
17 August 2021
12 August 2021
Recent Blog Posts
04 July 2022 | Dingle, Kerry, Ireland

Dingle, Blasket Sound to Aran Islands

Dingle, Blasket Sound and on to the Aran Isles. 28 May - 1st June

11 June 2022 | Cahergal Ring Fort, overlooking Valencia

VALENCIA AND KERRY, 21-27 MAY

Valencia's main habitation is Knightstown where a large marina within a set of breakwaters was envisaged but never completed. The breakwaters make it a safe place to tie up but there are no facilities so the next day we went up the river, which is constrained by tide, to the marina at Cahersiveen [...]

11 June 2022 | On Sneem Sculpture trail

KENMARE RIVER, north shore. 19-20 May

After three days boat-bound at anchor in Kilmakillogue we were keen to move on so we motor-sailed NW in 15-20 knots of gusty SW wind to anchor in the N cove of Garinish Islkand in Sneem Harbour. It was still too windy and grey to make it attractive to go ashore but by the morning it was brighter [...]

18 May 2022 | Dursey Sound cable car support

Kenmare River

Once the wind eased and we could move on from Adrigole, Bantry Bay, of course, there was no wind and we motored the 15nm to Castletown Bearhaven to provision andget nearer to the west end of Bantry Bay. Sailing from each river northwards needs not only good weather as the swell can get so large, [...]

12 May 2022 | The Italian garden at Garinish Island

Glengarriff Harbour and Garinish Island (Ilnacullin) 7-12 May

Glengarriff is sheltered enough to be a hurricane hole. It's a must to visit but as strong SW winds were forecast it was a perfect place to be. It was a fine evening and were greeted by the resident seals as we anchored near Garinish Island. The next day was overcast but we spent most of the day on the [...]

12 May 2022 | Live fowl for sale in Bantry market- you can buy almost anything!

Adrigole and Bantry

In settled weather we were abl;e to continue east towards Bantry, stopping in the protected Adrigole harbour which is home to a large population of harbour seals. The potentially peaceful is setting disrupted by the noise from the busy coast road with its traffic from the fishing port of Castleberehaven [...]

Homeward Bound: Northern Ireland to Cornwall, late August

25 September 2017 | Irish Sea
Larry Stabbins, fair much of the time.
After short walk, showers and catching up with washing at the very pleasant small marina in Glenarm, next day we caught the tide for a fast sail down to Bangor and went into the enormous, very expensive car park of a Marina at Bangor at the entrance to Belfast Loch. We left the next day for Ardglass but, as seems to be becoming more frequent, with a fair tide and good forecast, changed plans and headed for Holyhead, instead thinking we'd be ok entering after dark as it's a big commercail harbour. However at 2300 off Holyhead with a big foul tide and no wind we changed plans again and decided to carry on to Fishguard. We could see a frontal system approaching the northern Irish Sea while the SW of England, and Cornwall in particular, was about to have a heatwave, so getting south asap seemed a good plan.

Fishguard was a surprisingly nice anchorage for a day sitting out the strong south westerly winds and though we didn't go ashore, it was WARM! and SUNNY! Next day we left at 5am to catch the tide around St David's Head knowing we had three tide gates to negotiate before Falmouth. All went well and we had a good fast sail as far as Land's End where we arrived at Longhip's Light around 1am with no wind, so back to motoring again for the final leg. We arrived at Durgan on the Helford River in time for lunch and a very peaceful night at anchor in our favourite local anchorage.

Overall we had a another wonderful summer. Norway is spectacular and stunningly beautiful in places, the Norwegians were friendly, helpful, generally lovely and seem to have huge respect for seafaring people; fishermen would come to the boat just to talk. The midnight sun was wonderful and the weather generally pretty good though with such good forecasting now it's easy to avoid the bad bits. The sailing is pretty easy really, bouyage is excellent so the tortuous passages through the skerries are just challenging enough to be satisfying. The down side is the vast amount of motoring. The leads are too confined for beating and Tern isn't a boat for short tacking anyway so when there's no wind we motored to make progress.Norway is also eye-wateringly expensive and the food is some what restricted. I was expecting lots of great seafood but what you get is lots of cod. So we're going south next. We really enjoyed Shetland and Fair Isle and would like to explore the Outer Hebrides but maybe later.
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