Big Boat Bonanza
Not2bothered | October 11, 2007is there anyone in castlebar or westport going to the big boat bonanza in wicklow this weekend. its going to be mental. does anyone know how much it is to get in though?
is there anyone in castlebar or westport going to the big boat bonanza in wicklow this weekend. its going to be mental. does anyone know how much it is to get in though?
On the 25 of sept 2007 a bus left GMIT Castlebar towing a trailer that had initialy held 12 sea kayaks. It now held 7. A beautyfull little Grey Avocet was mine for the day. Another 5 boats would be filled with my fellow L4 ICU trainees. The last boat contained Ali Donald our instructor.
with the spring tide full out when we arrived at Roscahil pier, we packed out boats and put them in the black ooze that surrounded the pier wall like a sea of tar. ploding through the stinking mire we realised that if we lay on the back deck of our boats we could ‘paddle’ them through to the waters edge. sure enough we tried and we failed. the hilarity of watching mud covered individuals in full kayaking gear, wielding a paddle and pulling an 18ft kayak,.. slipping and falling onto their back and left stranded like some mad tortoise speaks for itself.
when we finally made it after some laughs and got into our boats, we were off. we paddled out the mouth of the inlet where we saw some large fish, brown in colour known as mullet go past. not a bad start to the day.
the water outside the little bay was very choppy and we proceeded across to Collan More island that also has a sailing centre on its east coast, that was getting a battering from the wind. from here we used a bit of sheltered land to pratice using the tide , skeg and the weathercocking of the boat to turn in the wind. later we moved out and tried it in the open water where the wind was acting against the tide, jacking up the chop. it was basic enough but there was some high braces involved on several occasions.
we move on from there surfing the chop between the eddies in the tide which was now approaching 1.5knots. we were expecting it to reach 2knots by mid afternooon for out return journey. our next landfall was Inishgort at the base of the lighthouse. the place seamed to be deserted but well kept. the western side of the island must take a savage beating in the full of winter.
after a quick lunch we were on the water again, on a southerly bearing around the outside islands Dornish and Inishimmel. at this point the wind had died off and it opened up to be a clear calm day with some swell passing between the boats on its march to shore.
using this swell and the increasing tidal push we did a loop back east passing Crovinish and Inishlyre on the way to Roscahil pier. we did a little fishing from the boats on the edge of the tidal flow and with time as ever a constraint, we moved on. we exited the water at around 5pm after covering approx 10km easy going, loaded up the boats onto the trailer and went home with a sense of satisfaction.
boo yea, good day on the water….
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