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We made the passage from Ardrishaig (end of the Crinnan Canal, Mull of Kintyre) to Bangor (Belfast, Northern Ireland) yesterday in wet, windy, lumpy, miserable conditions. I thouroghly enjoyed myself, but them I am just like that. The other three were glad to be safely tied up at 03:00 this morning. We are all much more perky this morning after a nice hot shower, fry up breakfast, and soon the prospect of clean and dry clothes again. Debanessa is starting to look a bit more presentable as well, after looking a bit wet and beaten up last night. I still have a few bits to repair, after the pounding that she endured last night.

The trip started off peacefully enough. Rain, but no wind. The sea lock finaly sent us on our way about an hour after I had planned it to, so already our 01:20 eta at Bangor was going to be in question. The wind picked up nicely and we were close hauled for a bit with full main and genoa doing six knots in the rain. Life was grand. Wet but grand. Then the wind started gusting to 25 knots so we reefed down first to reef one on the main, and finally to reef two. It then also shifted a bit and so we tried tacking, but eventually furled the genoa and went for a reef one main, and about 1500 RPM on the Volvo MD3020. We tried a bit of Genoa from time to time, gusts permitting and were thundering along at 8 knots over the ground.

Once we were clear of the relative shelter of Aarun Island and the Kintyre Peninsular (Kilbrannan Sound) though, the swell on the Irish Sea combined with some choppy waves. The wind increased to a steady howl on the nose, the lazy jack sail bag gave up all pretense of being able to cope, Debanessa started pounding into the waves, lurching up and then crashing down into the next swell, and the crew headed downstairs. I did my Southern Ocean training and got alternate lashings of sea and rain, but the Musto three layers (I have now also invested in some neato underlayers) did their job and apart from face and hands, I was more than warm and pretty dry.

I tried some tacking to keep the double reefed main full and to return some speed to Debanessa who was dropping down to 1 knot on each juddering crash into a wave, even with Volvo beating along at 2200 RPM. It did help a bit and I kept that up for two hours, tacking every half hour. Things calmed down a bit for an hour or two at around 23:00 and at one stage the rain actually stopped and Nicky and I were able to count eight light houses around us on the Scottish, English and Irish coasts. It is really quite narrow up here. Then as we made our way at a more respectable 6 knots past the Maidens (rocks with a blinding lighthouse), and all of us were starting to look out for the iso Red 12s 14M for Bangor Harbour, the rain and mist/fog closed in again and we were running on GPS (boat and hand held) alone. To add delight to the proceedings the wind which had reduced to about 17 constant SSW decided to start gusting 26 again just as we (mainly Nicky) started to get the main down and I started to pilot us through the twisty turny entrance into the harbour.

Well it was quite a day/night. We got in safely at 03:00 and awoke at about 09:00 to a wet, dischreveled Debanessa. The showers were great, the washing machines and driers large, and the fry up breakfast has enthused everyone again. The long term forecast looks like more of the same in the Irish Sea, so we could be going toe to toe with the elements again in a couple of days as we continue our adventure around the UK. Dublin is next, and then Milford Haven, Falmouth and a more familiar route along the South coast of England, home to Southampton.

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