Great couple of days away

Had a good trip away on the boat, the wind wasn't in my favour until this afternoon when it sprung up and had me scooting along at 5 knots. Yesterday I had to motor into head winds for a fair while and it was flat calm when I left this morning and didnt kick in until 2 hours of my 6 hour passage. Anyway while I was becalmed off Golam head I got into two big pollack and more than a dozen mackerel, we are having fish for dinner.

 Golam tower on a very calm day, this point is open to the Atlantic and usually there is a swell crashing into the rocks there, this is where I caught the two big pollack today.

 It was cloudy both days but did not rain and was warm.

 Roundstone Bay

 The houses in this island (Inishlacken) were badly damaged by the storms that knocked down my trees this last winter, the swells were covering the island and on the mainland the roads were washed away and one of the beaches at Dogs bay was completely changed when the sand shifted.

I moored up alongside two fishing boats at the pier last night and there was no ladder on the wharf just two tires tied below each other so I waited till about half tide before going ashore, I was just going to have one beer but ended up in a hen night craic which saw me get back to the boat about 0200 thankfully the tide was ok for clambering back aboard, my head wasn't the best this morning. The navigation software on my phone was brilliant and I had a waterproof folder with chartlets I printed out which was great in the cockpit, nothing worse than a full size chart blowing around getting wet and creased. The boats bottom could do with a clean only got 14 knots out of her under power with the ballast out when it was flat calm this morning, gave me a shock how fast it went through petrol too and its just as well the breeze kicked in or I would be out there yet as I wouldn't have had enough petrol to steam the whole way. Was really nice to have had a leisurely sail back although I was touching 5 knots at one point, listened to tunes on the ipad all the way home and had the sails set properly so I could just leave her on a course and go below to make coffee etc and she wouldn't stray off course.