A Sailing Holiday – Dunmore East to Little Island

We discovered this morning, while checking out the shower facilities, that Dunmore East also has two Speed Queen washers and driers; 2 euro per machine per cycle. So for 8 euro, we washed and dried a whole IKEA bag worth of laundry (the bag that goes on the trolleys, not the open bag).

We picked up some provisions too – wine, cheese, Ryvita, tissues, orange juice etcetera. What we hadn’t realised is how hard it would be to get certain provisions while visiting ports on the south coast; everywhere we’ve been, bar Cork, has pretty much only had a Mace or Centra, and the stock has been ok, but not great. So, if we do this again, the provisioning would change. Fewer cans of tomatoes, more tissues (the small packs).

While the drying cycle was running for the laundry, we wandered up the hill to the Lemon Tree – a restaurant offering a definite Mediterranean cast to their food. K had some spaghetti vongole, while I had what was touted as “African curried goat” – actually a Moroccan tagine using goat meat, very tasty.

After collecting the freshly laundered bedding, towels, and clothes, we made our way back to Blue Opal to put things away, and prep for our departure to Waterford/Little Island. This is when we discovered that a small boat had tied up outside of us, and the owners were nowhere to be seen. Not a major problem for rafting boats; just have to ask someone else to take the boat outside of us onto their raft, so that we could depart.

Used the shore water to refill our water tank, and wash the deck down with fresh water, disconnected the shore power, and made ready the slip lines to depart. Had a chat with the skipper of another boat one raft over (Mary Kate), and he agreed to take on the BTC-22 that was tied up to us. With that yacht moved, it was a case of slipping the bow, pulling in the mid-line, and then gently going astern and then ahead against the stern line to get the bow to swing out into the harbour mouth. Of course, the moment I cast off and started to slowly move out from the raft, one of the angling/tour boats came sauntering around the entrance, and rather than move over a bit to let me past, kept going in a straight line close to the raft. Ah well, didn’t hit anything, and I hadn’t applied any great throttle yet, so just waited for that boat to pass.

The trip up the Barrow and Suir was a doddle. Fully planned out on OpenCPN at home, and transferred to the nav tablet. K helmed once we were in the channel north, and I provided navigation instructions. As we proceeded up on the flood, the tide started to provide us with 3 knots of flow, allowing us to keep the engine at ~3 – 4 knots worth of RPM, and get 6 – 7 knots of SOG up the river. A generally uneventful trip with nice scenery – at times, one might have thought it was Canada or Alaska based on the pine trees.

Two things that stood out – the first being two lighthouse-looking structures at Duncannon; the fort one is the one to pay attention to, the other is just a decoration on someone’s house. The second is that as a yacht, you can pretty much ignore the navigation channel, within reason. At least, on a flood tide. On the ebb, I’d be more cautious I think.

I took the helm again for the turn from Queens Channel to Kings Channel; navigation here needed the ability quickly respond with knowledge of the boat handling. As we rounded one of the port-hand buoys, there was a definite shimmy and sideways dance as we crossed about 3 different currents. Anchoring took 3 tries; on the first try, the anchor bounced back out of the mud when I set the engine astern, the second was a complete failure to drop enough chain out, and on the third the anchor set and bit pretty hard – hard enough that Blue Opal bounced up and down.

Anchor watch software is engaged for the night, just to be sure. Lovely peaceful anchorage just to the NW of the wire ferry – just have to listen to the ferry go back and forth. May investigate the ferry landing tomorrow, to see if we can tuck in alongside with the dinghy to drop someone off, and thus go get fresh pizza for dinner. We think we’ll stay here for a few nights, and perhaps visit the Saltees another day. Dessert is some chocolate fudge cake we bought at Lemon Tree.

Dessert. A bit heavy on the icing really, but nice.

Oh yes, I have a cold. Not fun. First one since April 2020.

Total distance: 13.34 NM
Average speed: 5.05 knots
Total time: 02:29:03
Download file: Dunmore East to Little Island.gpx