27 Aug to 3 Sept. Marina and Pete arrived, having taken an extraordinarily early flight to land in Cork at 07.20. We needed to take the ebb tide out of the river, so after a quick coffee we headed down the river, in warmth and sunshine. Our journey was back to the entrance to the river, on the west side, to Dunmore East, a busy fishing port (background in pic) on the west side of entrance to Waterford river and holiday port.
We anchored in the bay as the harbour was full, it was a nice place to be except it was very rolly due to the swell, so not a lot of sleep was had! We explored the 'chocolate box' village in the morning before motoring further west to Youghal ('yawl') which we thought was meant to be a pretty place with some good restaurants....wrong on both counts! But the mooring buoys were good and we had a much better nights sleep.
Sadly still no wind the next day, so we motored to a sandy bay to anchor for lunch and the chance to swim (well done Pete) and a kayak. Then we head into Cork river, we had planned to go to the city centre, but the marina there seemed to be closed and we didn't want to go 12 miles up river to find there was nowhere to park. So went to Crosshaven, a small village at the mouth of Cork, with 3 marinas. Had to contend with going into Cork on the bus the next day. A bit disappointing after Waterford, but we had a nice walk around and the English Market is wonderful. Basically an indoor market selling lots of Irish food. Marina bought fish for supper from the Queens fishmonger!
Although we didn't actually manage to eat the fish that night, as we went to visit friends of Marina's in Crosshaven for a quick drink and, typically Irish, we didn't leave until late after being wined and dined.
We left Crosshaven the next day for our final trip west and luckily we did manage to sail all the way to Kinsale. The gastronomic capital of Ireland...how could we not visit?Apparently over 50 eateries and no we didn't visit them all! Also famous for the loud colours all the shops and many of the houses are painted. Also birth place of one of the few women pirates Ann Bonnie who operated in the Caribbean in the 17th Century. And inspired these steps in Kinsale - if you can't quite read the wording. 'Well behaved women don't make history'.





We had a wonderful few days with Marina and Pete, sad to see them go, but not so sad as to get up at 6am to say goodbye before they got their taxi to the airport!

Typically, now we want to head east, the wind is from the east. So we took a couple of days to cycle west and hope that the wind would improve in a few days. We cycled over to Union Ball and stayed in the Shearwater B&B, possibly the cleanest house I've ever been into! It's another fishing port up a small wooded estuary, with lots of fisherman's cottages. The trip there was along the coast and part of the Wild Atlantic Way a 2500k route around the coast which starts at Kinsale in the south and finishes at Malian Head on the north. Wind assisted all the way, the return journey was inland on incredibly deserted lanes, but also into the wind and much hillier...ie hard work!

Back in Kinsale, although the forecast was not great, still being from the east, it wasn't too strong and with some stormier weather forecast a few days hence we made plans to make the crossing to the Scilly Isles the next day.