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Can We Get Under the Cable Car?

For the first time this holiday we had somewhere to be – Glengarrif by about 4:30 - -ish this afternoon. It was a little misty and completely calm in Bunaw at 7am on Tuesday morning. We motored out retracing the tortuous route using the leading lights ( red lights mounted on yellow and black striped over tall pit props that had formed our transit on the way in.

Out in the Kenmare river the visibility was very poor so on went the radar but we actually encountered few other boats. There was a bit of breeze by now but not enough to sail or blow away the mist. Heading seawards the visibility improved but not enough to see the other river shore. By now our attention was on other things. Could we get through the Dursey Sound between the island of that name and the mainland? A cable car and a telephone cable stretched over the gap. Out came all our reference sources; Reeds Almanac, the Irish Cruising Club Sailing Directions (our trusty pilot) and the boat manual. Eventually we were convinced that it would be possible – a few hours off low water springs, 26m clearance on the telegraph cable, 23 m on the cable car cables and 21m under the car itself (these all measured at highest astronomical tides) with an air draft for Temptress of around 19m (depending on just how much weight we had in her). So at least 2 m clearance plus the tidal difference if actually passing under that car itself – which we didn’t fancy as it’s typical load is cows not humans!  By now the tide was flowing north through the sound at 3 knots or more bringing us to a virtual halt. To complicate this little adventure there is a rock smack in the middle of the narrowest part of the sound – we had to pass to the left or right hand side. We aimed for the right, revving up the engine to push against the tide. I was at the helm, not quite shaking. “If you touch the cables turn to port as the wind will take the bow round faster and put the engine in reverse”.

“If I do that we’ll be on the rock in the middle” “better than hitting those to starboard” came the retort. Hearts in mouth we crept forward necks craning upwards. From our vantage point the cables seemsed to cross at the first spreader height, then the second spreaders then overhead. We breathed again. Big grins all round we were through!

Dursey Sound then dog-legs to starboard and widens to the open sea. Leaving the rocks on the headland clear we turned to port and headed into the start of Bantry Bay. The visibility though much improved wasn’t good enough to see the southern shore of this wide long bay but what we could see on our side was an exposed treeless terrain.

Soon the sun came out, the breeze increased blowing away the mist. Up went the sails and we beat along the northern shore until we had to tack to avoid a headland and a fishing boat. Tacking back the wind freed us so it was one long reach deep into the bay. We even caught a couple of mackerel as we went. By mid-afternoon the land to the south of us appeared an started to close in. Whiddy Island with its deep water oil terminal began to take shape ahead of us. We passed the light houses either end of Bere Island on our port hand side and as the breeze died in glorious sunshine we stoed our sails, turn to port and threaded our way between the fish farms and islets that fill Glengarrif Bay to anchor off the hotel. The phone rang, it was Maureen, who by giving us a running commentary on what we were doing established that we were the boat that Eamon could see though his binoculars!

Showered and dressed for going ashore we were greeted by Kevin’s cousins and Jan a journalist friend of theirs. We headed up through the village for a beer. After a couple of drinks at Bernards and saying farewell to Jan and another new friend Kate, we replenished the ships stores with some chicken for supper we collected their overnight bags, a banjo and 2 straw panamas from Eamons shed (aka their battered estate car). It was an overfull dinghy that headed back to Temptress.

The weather forecast had been predicting strong southerlies for a day or so meaning that Glengarrif village would be a lee shore so for comfort we moved to a visitors mooring. After our previous attempt at such a small bout we know our arms would be too short so we adeptly lassoed the thing. For a small plastic object it was incredibly heavy so eventually I got in the dinghy and threaded the line through from there – easy why did we not think of that earlier? We then tried to remove our favourite red “shore” line  from around the buoy - it was stuck fast. Kevin stripped off and dived in and under. No wonder the bouy was heavy it had a huge crop of mussels attached to its underside and these had trapped the line. Two dives later and the red line was ours once more. It was quickly threaded through the loop to supplement the other line under orders from the Skipper. As I carried out the task smelly Glengarrif mud from the anchor rained down – one pink fleece was adorned with grey splodges. Coq-au-vin pressure cooker style and a session on the banjo from Eammon rounded off another great day in Ireland.

8:55 PM - Oct. 23, 2006 - post comment