Well this morning was lovely as you can see from the photo of the sunrise we took from our anchorage.

The effect of the tide/river was running strongly as we went to raise the anchor. All was going well until the chain jammed in the locker and stacked up at the navel pipe, (pipe which goes through the deck and guides the chain into the chain locker) which meant going down inside the boat to the underside of the bow and kicking the chain out of the way to allow more to drop into the locker. By this time we had done this the current had ran us over the chain and the chain scratched the port side of the boat…….bugger bugger bugger.

Once cleared however the remaining chain came up fine, and the good news is the new Rocna Anchor came up and settled reasonably well onto the bow roller – so that was good – in time we should consider having another bow roller manufactured to suit the Rocna, but it’s fine for the time being. Our plan today was to go down the coast and stop for lunch at Ballycotton which had been suggested by friends Ange and Marcus.

The exit we were taking would take us over the west bar, which with our draft wouldn’t be a problem, but when we exited past the lighthouse the whole scene changed as the seas were more than a little lumpy and were on our beam creating a real rolly polly situation for a time, as I couldn’t change course until over the bar and clear of the real shallow bits. Once clear I headed across the waves to settle the motion and kept going away from our course until I had enough clearance off the headlands to enable me to turn to starboard and thus have the waves behind us all the way to Cork Harbour. Ballycotton would need to be visited another time.

This leg was pretty much a straightforward trip down the coast dodging lobster pots etc until we cleared the headland and sailed into Cork Harbour, and then into the Owenboy River. We took a berth at Royal Cork Yacht Club, and enjoyed a lovely hot shower with plenty of hot running water. Looking forward to a good nights sleep tonight