Water stealing and clearing the decks

We kept passing these bouys with yellow crosses on top on the way down Lough Derg from Portumna:

Hopeless quality, I know, but I didn't have a proper camera (phone only), we were rocking about a fair bit and I was supposed to be driving. What on earth are they? we said, puzzled. Some kind of hazard, obviously. A quick check of Waterways Ireland's Marine Notices informed me they were monitoring buoys, but gave nothing away about what they were monitoring. Had I been paying proper attention to the Summer edition of the Inland Waterways News Magazine I would have known all about it. A company acting for Irish Water put them there. What's being monitored is the status of Lough Derg in relation to water abstraction - Irish Water plan to filch water from the lake in order to help quench the very heavy thirst of Dubliners, but they can't just go ahead and do it - they have to put in a water abstraction application. 

The lake was as beautiful as ever as we motored south towards home.

Back in Mountshannon Harbour again and Joe was immediately busy blow torching the decks. A very tedious job, but less tedious than using just a paint scraper. There was a huge mass of algae in the corner of the harbour where we put Winter Solstice - you can see it in the photo.

You can also see what the weather was like - Joe was relying on the high pressure forecast to get the job finished.

So he kept going well into the evening:

If you look really closely you can see Winter Solstice on the right hand harbour wall. I'd gone down on the bike with cake.

Next day and this part of the job was nearly done.

As night began to fall ...

... he was onto the last bit. Here we go:

And so we reach the end of another beautiful day:

South of Lough Ree again

When we got back to Lanesborough Joe went off to Roscommon with the car and bike and tried to find the station. Not an easy job, it seems. While I was waiting for him to cycle back I went for a bit of a spin myself (have to justify eating cake somehow). When I got back the harbour was full of Shannon One Designs and bustling people - it was the end of a Regatta, and they were all getting ready to go home after the final prize giving.

They've tizzed up the riverside below the bridge in Lanesborough, putting in a whole new walkway. It was being constructed when we were last in the town on our way north. All finished now:

I had to look at this twice when I was picking the photos for the blog. It was only the red marker that made me realise it was in Ireland and not some continental paradise, with a photo snuck into my phone by some alien trying to confuse me.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we set off across the lake heading for Athlone. Flat calm and bright. A good day for it. We tied up against the wall in Athlone and set off on the bikes to see where we would eat. Joe was keen to have a Lebanese meze, but I'm hopeless with those, full after only a couple of courses. We went for it anyway in the end, and had the bright idea of making up our own, smaller meze instead of going for the set menu. Obvious, really.

While Joe went back for the car on the bus I headed off downriver.  A couple of hours later me and Winter Solstice were tucked into Shannonbridge. While Joe used the glorified hair dryer he had on board to remove the deck paint (a new discovery. Happy Joe!) I went for a spin on the bike to Clonmacnoise. It's interesting coming to it along the other, non-water, great highway, the Esker Riada, a ridge from which you can see for miles.

And here's the castle at Clonmacnoise. That blurry thing on the right above the bushes.

It was just after I turned to go back that I had a giant nosebleed (look away now if you're fainthearted about blood). A whole box of tissues wouldn't have staunched it, so I stood dripping on the side of the road until it eased, pretending I was looking for something when cars went past, then cycled back with my head up, breathing through my mouth.

When I got back Joe was on someone else's boat full of chat. Seems they have a house near us in Clare. Quick check of the mirror and clean up the nose so they don't think I've been in a fight.

I was with my mother when we stopped at this gorgeous bridge:

It's a trick. It's not on the Shannon at all. It's the River Dee, dividing Wales from England, Holt on one side, Farndon on the other. I was on a few days visit to Cheshire, bringing my niece Sara back with me.

Who became skipper for a bit as we brought Winter Solstice closer to home. Not a bother with it.

This time it was to Banagher. The walls are so high here, you have to hitch yourself up and out onto your rear end. Not very dignified. We need higher water levels to bring us up a bit in a boat the size of Winter Solstice.

Back soon.

Boat uncovered, ready to go (at last)

Long time no blog. It's been a bit of a tumultuous year so far, and boating didn't come into it. My father was sick, then died, we sold our old house and had to move out, and the new house was only partly ready. Thank heavens for the camper van.

But we finally got back up to Winter Solstice for a proper trip away last week. We'd unwrapped her from her winter covers a couple of weeks before, so we were ready to leave Albert Marina and hit the river.

We didn't get far on the first night - Drumsna just round the corner - but the second night we went all the way to Dromod, ooh, about an hour away. It was getting breezy as we headed south, but of course this is nothing like traversing Lough Derg or Lough Ree. OK the Shannon widened into Lough Bofin and Lough Boderg, but they're sweet little lakes with only a small chop on them.

Dromod Harbour was packed and getting packed-er. There was a small marquee / large gazebo set up on the grass beside the harbour wall which was the clue. The Boyle River branch of the IWAI were having a barbecue.

We took our chance and turned sharply into the old harbour while there was still space, tucking in neatly down at the end.

The big boats were still coming in, rafting up against each other, then smaller ones tying to the entrance wall, then a couple more fitting in at the entrance to the old harbour. Dromod's always busy but I've never seen it this busy.

And still the wind rose, rocking Winter Solstice gently, like being in a cradle. Then the foam started to form. It's that thing that happens in peaty water - the small river at our old house foamed up like a bubble bath after heavy rain, and the wind was doing the same job here.

Then escape to the tranquility of Lough Key Forest Park via Clarendon Lough.

With its beautiful weir.

The Forest Park is very different these days of course, with its new building, activities for all the family and new jetties with electricity and so on. We pulled in there first, just to see, but tranquility there wasn't. There's a small ship on the river, a liveaboard, and they were sharing their music with the rest of the marina. Mm, lovely. We bought ice creams and hot boated it over to Drumman's Island. Phew.

I don't think we've ever stopped at this end of the jetty before - it's always been taken, and now I know why.

The island is not as populated as it used to be before the new jetties. There were three of us on it the first night, two the second.

But can you beat an evening of looking at this.

Finally to Leitrim Village where we had dinner at the Marina Hotel. This was a first, the hotel having been at various stages closed or suffering a poor reputation. It wasn't half bad, the evening being helped by meeting old friends from Enniskillen and sharing a table.

We left the boat against the wall in Leitrim, ready for the next stage. Back again next week and up the Shannon-Erne Waterway to the north.

Behind the island and other stories

Mountshannon Arts Festival, Saturday, a boating event. The weather was still cold (impossible to believe writing this in the heat (yes really) of 9 am) and I was wrapped in about fourteen layers to watch the raft race. Some unusual craft and many blue legs ...

There should possibly have been a stewards' enquiry, but it was only after the prize was given to the two bashful lads that someone said 'that's not a raft, it's a boat'. The winning craft was half a domestic oil tank (just peeking into the left of the photo). Is a raft by definition flat?

That afternoon something happened with the sunshine. We mooched up the lake to Kilgarvan where there was a Derg branch IWAI barbecue. Kilgarvan is always lovely, and this was at the invitation of the inhabitants of the boaters there. A peaceful harbour with boats suitable to an angling club.

We squeezed into a small spot next to a shed - the advantage of an old-fashioned boat like ours is that you can do this. It freed up space for bigger boats and gave us aft access to land - after much jiggery pokery with ropes and planks helped by the invaluable men-who-always-do-this and other experts.

The boarding plank isn't ours. A (much) bigger boat, Chang Sha, lent us this as the one we had on deck was too weedy for the job. It's as well we did. The boat to the left, Liberty Blaze, tied alongside and had visitors staying on board who were not suited for the job of plank walking. Fair play to them for doing it anyway.

Next stop a hidden place to join Knocknagow, already secured. If you go up the lake as though to the bridge at Portumna you pass through two pairs of markers where the lake narrows to a river. To the left of these markers is an island you barely notice - Roger's Island (not sure if there's an apostrophe and the chart is on the boat). Between the island and the mainland is a cut in which dogs and crew can be intrepid, tied to trees and surrounded by towering reeds.

We were boy and girl scouts, stuck in the jungle with a steep boarding plank giving access to tunnels between reeds! I had to cut back nettles with a pair of scissors!

Ahem. I should add, in the interests of truth and anti-hyperbole, that the roadway was a 30 second push through the reeds.

But it was beautiful. A Swallows and Amazons sort of place, or how I imagine the Norfolk Broads to be if they weren't so full of cruisers.

We'll be going back there.

When we changed to timber

Ten years ago Joe and I were preparing ourselves for the arrival of our new boat. We found her in November and went to see her in the marina in Poole in Dorset where she was kept. She'd been having some vital repairs done, paid for by the seller as part of the deal - we didn't want a project. Here she is as we first saw her:

Burma Star was a motor cruiser constructed from timber – mahogany in the hull below and marine ply in the coach house above. The hull was white but the carvel planking showed through. The coach house with its angular aluminium 1960s windows had recently been given a single coat of matching white which didn't look good. The decks were pale blue. Our salesman told us the boat had been launched in 1969, one of the last to come out of the highly respected Rampart boat yard in Southampton.

We'd been looking for a while, had been to see a couple of boats that wouldn't do, being either too small or requiring too much work. Standing on the deck looking at Burma Star I tried to keep in my excitement. We were determined not to be caught up by the moment and buy something that wasn't right - we have a habit of doing that. The seller climbed on deck and invited us on board.

Up we climbed, marvelling at the way the boat held steady in the water. I peered into the cockpit. Lots of mahogany. A bit narrow. A proper instrument board with a light on a stalk you could bend around for night sailing. (Night sailing! Imagine! This boat could do that.) Above your head as you stood at the wheel was another board of switches, all labelled: wipers; cockpit light; nav. lights; instruments. The floor was painted an ugly blue.

We went into the saloon.
'Mind your head,' I said to Joe, an essential precautionary measure in Caoimhe, our tiny Freeman – the scab on the top of his head was generally fresh.

Little Caoimhe

It was palatial. You could seat six people comfortably: three down each side. The upholstery was a royal blue with small dots of gold insignia and was, we were told, new. It looked it. There was a substantial ship's table set between the seats. Highly varnished mahogany lockers (presses or cupboards to land people) were cleverly placed for maximum storage.

You could shut off the saloon from the rest of the boat with a door that closed –  there were two cabins. On the right was the galley. A two-ring hob sat above a miniature fridge, half-size sink and drainer beside it. Behind was a short section of counter. It was perfect for playing house (or boat).

Opposite the galley was the bathroom (heads in sailing-speak). Very exciting. Caoimhe had a walk-in locker containing a toilet on which, with careful manoeuvring, you could seat yourself. Here there was a toilet, a sink that pulled in and out from the wall on runners, a shower and enough space for two people to turn round.


Finally at the front of the boat was the fore cabin incorporating a V-berth: two bunks tapering into the pointy end of the boat. There was also a jolly board for linking the two together into something like a double bed so you could have jollies (contortionists only). It was all very satisfactory. I tried not to grin. I knew we'd found our boat.