Derry & Donegal

Having a few spare days of holiday time, I decided to make best use of the August bank holiday weekend by stretching it into a 5-day break "back home", in north-west Ireland - in Londonderry, where I grew up, and in north-west Donegal, of which I have many happy childhood holiday memories.

The photos attached split into the different places I visited with my parents and brothers, in chronological order:

• The Ness woods, a wooded river valley near Derry, with a particularly beautiful waterfall
• Boating on the Foyle river, which runs through Derry, in my dad's new boat. It's an Orkney Longliner, a 16-ft ouboard motor type craft. Quite fun, if not quite as interesting as a sailing vessel!
• Hillwalking on Muckish mountain, in the Derryveagh mountains. This makes quite a pleasant afternoon's walking, if you get good weather! We were fairly fortunate, apart from the cloud ontop - and one shower that the umbrella came out for (!).
• Horse-riding on Killahoey beach - the first time I'd been riding in many years. Pleasant, if not exactly exciting - we spent most of the time walking the horses along the beach.
• Taking the boat out again, this time on Sheephaven bay, from Portnablagh out to Horn head

Plus a few random additional photos, including Marble Hill beach. Sadly, none of the Ards forest, where I went for a lovely 14k run - difficult to carry a camera!
All in all, a very pleasant break to see the family and enjoy the Irish outdoors.

Finland, Finland, Finland...

The country where I quite want to be... (thanks go to Monty Python)

For anyone with a spare week's holiday this summer, I can thoroughly recommend a sailing holiday in the Finnish archipelago - some of the prettiest and most unspoilt cruising areas I've visited (see the many photos below - I initially had almost 500, so I've had to cull a lot of excellent photos to get it down to these!). Initially, the trip plan was to do Turku to Helsinki to Tallinn, but this changed somewhat midway, with Helsinki being dropped and more time in Estonia added - partly due to lack of wind, partly due to most of the crew having already visited Helsinki.

We picked up the CUY yacht Kestrel at Turku, in south-west Finland - which doesn't have an international airport, so I travelled via Tampere, and got a cross-country train. Both cities seemed very pleasant, if somewhat unexciting; the countryside in between was green and wooded, with plentiful lakes.

On the first day, after sorting out the usual shopping and handover stuff, we set off to Nauvo, a fairly developed island village to the south-west. Again, a pleasant enough place, though not stunning; but after a long day we were glad of its excellent facilities.

The following day, after a leisurely start, we got a good long sail in, towards the western edge of the archipelago, in excellent sailing conditions, and finished up in a small cluster of islands at Berghamn - which was much more like what I was looking for: isolated, unspoilt, and beautiful. We tied up to a fairly elderly wooden pier in a small bay, surrounded by rocks and green islands, dotted here and there with wooden huts and lodges. The few local people we met were invariably friendly.

On the Wednesday, we sailed south to another isolated, rugged island, Bjorko, for a lunch stop and a swim in its freshwater lake. Again, the scenery was amazing, and the water surprisingly warm - though, due to mooring up on the other side of the island, most of us didn't reach the lake - and got rather nettle-stung and mosquito-bitten in the process of exploring the meadows and rocks! On the other hand, we did have a very pleasant swim in the (otherwise deserted) bay, and claimed a small nearby island for CUY by making a very small cairn :-)

That evening, we arrived at Rosala, a quiet village to the east, on a larger island. This is a fairly quiet sort of place, but also comparatively wealthy. At any rate, a pleasant spot for a bbq! It was somewhat lacking in facilities for boats, but the following morning we nipped round the corner to a nearby marina to top up on water and fuel, and use the showers.

The afternoon was almost flat calm, with mirror-like water, but we still made progress to the east. We decided to stop for the night at a small natural harbour and nature reserve recommended by the pilot book. The book was right in that it was a very pretty spot; what it failed to mention was the rocks right in the middle of the 5m channel... Fortunately, we were being suitable cautious and were only doing half a knot when we bumped. The place turned into a bit of a maze, but a very helpful Finnish boat gave us a hand (unlike the other Finnish boat in the harbour, who were rather rude about us visiting). The water also turned out to be surprisingly warm - something I discovered after I slipped on a rock and had an unexpected dip! All part of the bbq fun :-)

On Friday, after a brief stop at Jossaro, we crossed the Gulf of Finland to Estonia. Initially, it looked like a very wet crossing, with steady rain, but fortunately the wind and sea were fairly calm - though one member still managed to get seasick! Later on in the afternoon, the weather cleared up and the wind picked up suddenly, and as we approached the Estonian coast we were making 7 knots under sail in the sunshine.

Lohusalu, where we stayed on Friday night, looked very shiny and modern; not particularly atmospheric, though they did raise the union jack when we came in! The shop that was "just nearby" turned out to be a 5km walk away, and the restaurant at the marina was fairly average. On the other hand, we had a very pleasant walk along the long, woodland-backed beach next to the marina, with picturesque wreck out in the bay, where much stone-skipping was had.

The following day, we made the last passage to Tallinn, down the Estonian coastline. The coast was rather less dramatic than on the Finnish side, though attractive enough; long sandy beaches, low hills, and comparitively few rocks or islands. The cloudscape meanwhile did its best to compensate, with an impressive parade of cumulonimbus, while the skyline of Tallinn from the sea also helped. The destination marina, Pirites, was a large commercial kind of place, and not particularly appealing in itself. It was almost fully booked, due to a regatta, but after playing circuits and bumps for a while we found a quiet spot. We spent the final day of the trip in old Tallinn, a beautiful city; particularly recommended is the old castle area, and the small streets and alleys around the medieval walls. Also recommended is "Troika" ,a russian restaurant on the main square, and "Hell Hunt" (curiously translating to "Gentle Wolf"), the oldest pub in Estonia.

In summary, a great trip with a great crew; stunningly beautiful scenery, especially in the isolated islands of the Finnish archipelago; and generally pretty good weather, if a bit short of wind. A map of the trip can be found here; hi-res versions of photos (or indeed an archive of the full original set) are available on request.

May Bumps 2009

There are few better ways to spend a sunny summer afternoon in Cambridge than with old friends at the May Bumps, the inter-college races held at the end of the year - in typical Cambridge fashion, the May Bumps are in June. In brief, boats start spaced out on the river, and the objective is simply to catch (and sometimes literally bump) the boat in front. Many of the photos here are of the Selwyn boats, that being my college.

Hi-res versions of the photos are available on request!

East Coast Sailing

Another fun* weekend's sailing on the East Coast, despite a slightly greater than usual amount of faff getting the trip organised.

The crew consisted of sailing novices, including a couple of non-sailing friends, plus Phil, one of the other club skippers. On the Friday, we all made our way to Ipswich without much incident and had a tasty dinner (thanks to Phil, who got there early). Sadly we then had to go shopping, due to Tesco being useless and refusing to deliver to the marina - with the result that everyone was pretty tired before we'd even gone anywhere!

On Saturday we had a pretty relaxed start, as (due to wind and tide) I'd decided to go north towards Lowestoft, rather than south to Burnham-on-Crouch - so we didn't have to get up early for the tide. After an interesting moment in the lock on the way out, where the stern line got jammed, we had a gentle cruise down the river towards the sea. Raising sail half-way down also gave the crew an opportunity to get familiar with the sails in sheltered conditions - much tacking involved!

Once out of the river, we had a lovely sail up the coast, in near ideal conditions for novices, and sandwiches for lunch :-) After lunch we had an unexpected guest arrive - Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs! A couple of officers came on board from a RIB while the cutter stood off a few hundred meters, had a look around, to a swab, and people's details. All very friendly and civilised, and they went on their way fairly shortly.

Later in the afternoon, the wind picked up to 25 knots, and the sea got a bit bumpier. This got a bit tough on the novices, with one being unfortunate enough to become very seasick. After getting in to Lowestoft at 8:30pm or so, some of the crew were very happy to be on solid ground... especially with the excellent dinner prepared by Silke.

To catch the tide, we made a 6am start the next morning - sadly, without the seasick crew member who decided not to risk it again. In fact, the conditions were smooth and calm - we ended up motoring for 5 hours on a flat sea. The crew seemed pretty happy with this, despite the lack of sailing; at least we got a nice view of Sizewell B Nuclear power station!

Fortunately the wind picked up enough to sail in the early afternoon, so we had a very pleasant 4 hours or so sailing off Felixtowe, Harwich and the Walton backwaters, watching a racing fleet go past; plus a very gentle down-wind run run upriver to Ipswich.

*except when seasick...

Spring in the Cyclades

There are few better ways to spend a week in spring that sailing the Cyclades islands in Greece, in a pair of Sun Odyssey 35s. After a an overnight stay in Athens on the Friday night, and a tour around the Acropolis, we picked up the boats at Poros on Saturday and headed for Merikha on Kithnos. This was a pleasant enough village, but not especially attractive. The next morning, despite the lack of wind, we headed to Livadhi on Serifos. This is much prettier, and affords a good walk up the hill to an impressive view from the top of the old village.

The following day we crossed to Finikas on Sifos, for lunch and a swim, and then randomly decided to head for Delos. The plan was to moor up there and explore the ancient ruins there in the morning, but a rising wind, shallow water and a somewhat unpleasant industrial feel put us off, and we anchored in a deserted bay in Rinia instead.

The following day the wind had dropped again, so we ended up motoring most of the way to Ermoupolis on Sifos. This is the capital of the Cyclades, and a very attractive town, with surprisingly friendly dogs, but very little water - it took us several frustrating hours to refill the yachts! The morning after we headed back to Kithnos, and had a great day's sailing, despite tearing the mainsail. To balance that, we had the company of a pod of dolphins along the way.

From Kithnos we crossed to Idra, possibly the most attractive island and town, where the main mode of transport are mules, rather than motors. Sadly, my camera did not survive the bumpy crossing, hence the lack of photos for this or the return leg to Poros the following day.

All in all, a great trip with a great bunch of CUY folks, in an idyllic set of islands.

Go East, to Brighton

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, or just for fun, I randomly signed up for some January sailing with the CUY yacht Kestrel. We arrived at Swanwick Marina on the Hamble near Southampton, on Friday night, and set off to sea at around midnight. With good sailing conditions, we had a fast, if rather chilly, run to Brighton, making landfall at around 8am.

The view from Brighton marina wasn't particularly inspiring, so we set off back to the Solent before 11am. The fast turnaround was also encouraged by the weather forecast - borne out by the cloud and rising wind that reached us just as we arrived at Portsmouth. We overnighted at Gunwharf Quay, right under the Spinnaker Tower near the centre of the city.

On Sunday, the weather had largely calmed down again, and we had a (mostly) relaxed and pleasant day's sailing around the Solent - even getting the spinnaker up for the run home to the Hamble!

Christmas in Ireland, Roundup

A collection of random photos from Christmas and New Year in Ireland - mostly from walking in Donegal. I haven't really had time to sort and process these, but they may have some interest.

Slieve Snaght

Another lovely frosty day, and this time it's a mountain rather than a lake! We decided on a family trip to Slieve Snaght, the highest 'mountain' on Innishowen in north-west Ireland at 678m. In Ireland, this is a fair-sized mountain! The name comes from gaelic 'Sliabh Sneacht', or Snowy Mountain, and it lived up to it in spirit if not in fact - the moors and slopes were coated in frost and ice.