Launch of book not boat

On the way to Scarriff Harbour for the Big Event. Ha ha. Big for me, anyway - the launch of The Skipper & Her Mate at the Scarriff Harbour Festival. We stopped for the night at Reddan's Quay in Tuamgraney. There was one other boat in - a Freeman 23, just like our first, and on board we found an Australian couple, (she originally from Clonakilty), children grown, here for the Australian winter. They'd had the boat for only a few weeks and were still in that wonderful first flush of joy. The boat came with a trailer, which seems so improbable to me. Dinghies have trailers, not 23-foot cruisers. They've plans for the Midi de France.

A short while later a sports boat came upriver, and there were our third companions for the evening. This pair were from Galway and were obviously intrepid campers - they had all the gear you'd use for camping except a tent, as they were sleeping in the (very big) cuddy. There's himself in the photo, swimming in the river next morning. Wouldn't catch me in there. That river comes off the mountain, some of it via my garden stream. It's freezing.

Next stop Scarriff. Here's Joe and Aoife approaching the Fair Green where the stage was in the process of being constructed. Bunting up. Sky blue. Looking good. This was after the two days of rain rain rain in the middle of the week. It barely stopped long enough to take the dogs out. How lucky the festival was. By Friday the rain had cleared and I was walking up the Main Street from the boat in a state verging on terror to be interviewed on Clare FM (broadcasting in a van from outside Rogers Off License) about Skipper. I've never been on the radio before so had no idea if I would dry up or stumble or mumble. As it happens I did none of those things, which was just as well as I was to feature on the Marian Finucane Show, RTE 1 radio, the next morning with Áine Lawlor (Marian being away).

I had to go home for that one as they needed a landline. I was supposed to be on at 11.40. They rang to say it would be 11.50. Jesus, the stress of waiting. Then it got to 11.55 and I knew it would be delayed again - couldn't fit it in before the Angelus at noon. Pace the floor, try to read a poem or two, page the floor, urge the phone to ring. Finally on at 12.20. No stumbles. Phew.

Great launch. Theo Dorgan, my launcher did me proud (photo by Kevin O'Shea):

 

I was thrilled at the crowd in the marquee. The sun shone. We took over the quay wall outside Winter Solstice for food and beverages afterwards - the table was lifted out from the saloon, and every folding chair we could glean was opened out. We'd just about finished when we noticed the sky. Everything grabbed and hurried back inside, the few remaining celebraters hustled in too as the rain began to torrent. Thunder. Lightning. Terrific.

Tremendous but it was good to capture the peace and quiet of early(ish) mornng.

And finally here's Jean, just off to Ballyvaughan after a great festival. One of this summer's new friends, an early buyer of Skipper.

The Skipper & Her Mate available at New Island Books, Amazon or bookshops throughout Ireland.

Swimming on the runway

It was Joe who said we'd never swum on a runway before and he was right. We were in Mountshannon in all the heat, down at the beachy swimming area. We'd gone beyond the nursery slope (you can walk out beyond all the gyrating children and still not be out of your depth) when we heard the sound of the propeller.

If you look carefully you can just see the owner of the propeller to the right of the marker, just in front of Bushy Island. Harbour Flights have started doing Seaplane Scenic Tours - you can fly around Lough Derg for €85 - and the plane was coming in to land as we bobbed about in the water. It's a tiny thing - not for those who get the jitters on Aer Arran. Noisy, I suppose, but no worse than some boats. A novelty at the moment - 'Oh look! There's the seaplane!' but that will wear off soon enough.

There's a bit of a fuss in Mountshannon at the moment - a clash between native (though re-introduced) and manufactured fliers. The white-tailed eagle chicks have just fledged, so there's a bit of sensitivity about what's happening around Bushy Island where the eagle parents nested. Harbour Flights have in the past organised an air show in Mountshannon, but claim the reason they won't be doing it this year is because the Golden Eagle Trust don't want it to take place over Mountshannon. The Trust say they have no influence on whether the show goes ahead. The people of Mountshannon have lost their voice! claims Emelyn Heapes of Harbour Flights. We hope the eagles will be here for many years to come, says John Harvey of Mountshannon Community Council. You can see more in the Clare Champion.

But ... I'm in there too! Here's the link. This is why we have this issue of the Champion. I had a call from the publisher of The Skipper & Her Mate to say the Champion were going to do a piece on the book, and did I have a photo. I didn't. We were in Portumna at the time, but Joe decided this venue wouldn't do for the shoot - we couldn't get me and the boat in properly in the submarine pen style of concrete jetties they have there.

So. Joe took the boat and I took the car to Dromaan. I thought we'd get a photo there, but suddenly the place was inundated with sails and many many young people.

They all sailed in through the narrowing entrance in very little wind. Impressive. Not the place for a photoshoot though.

In the end we got the shot in Mountshannon, showing off Winter Solstice too without the dot over the i.

The deck was so hot I couldn't put my feet down. Looks a bit weird.

Pre-launch feedback on the book has been brilliant. I'm astonished and delighted.

Looking forward (with some trepidation) to what the publishers call a celebration of the book at the Scarriff Harbour Festival:

Come if you can! (Yes I know Scarriff is a long way from most places). Be there in spirit anyway.

The Skipper & Her Mate

I left my phone turned on all night and close by just in case I didn't wake up, risking bleep annoyance. I needed to be ready for the courier who was delivering to Winter Solstice in Portumna Castle Harbour. I brought the phone with me as I walked the dogs, checking it every so often in case I'd accidentally put it to silent. I was only just back on board when it rang, the courier seeing if it was Castle or Connaught I was in. Joe, drinking tea in his bunk, got dressed in a hurry. Ten minutes later here it was:

It seemed completely appropriate that it was delivered to the boat. It's beautifully produced - my publishers New Island Books have done a fantastic job. And wouldn't you know, as the day went on the sky turned the same colour as the cover.

I would probably have been happy to just look at them all day, but my manager (aka Joe the Husband) was having none of that. Off he went to our neighbouring boat, barely awake, to offer them a copy. He came back still holding the book. I knew it. Nobody would want it anyway. How embarrassing. But no! I was to go back and sign it.

So here's a rare photo of  the author (yes!) and Joe Trimble, the fellow skipper who bought book number one, aboard Joe's boat.

'Go and ask the people on that boat,' said Joe after that. 'And look, catch them before they leave.' This was what I was afraid of. I'm completely shite at selling anything. The idea of doing it cold left me not just cold but frozen.

'That's the whole point of having a publisher,' I said. 'I really can't do that. I can't I can't.' Fair play to Joe, he understood that.

But never mind. As the day went on, he accosted people (nicely) as they sat on their boats or he helped them tie up. I even sold a few all on my own. A few days later, between Portumna and Terryglass, 60 copies were gone and many people were reading the book. Some said they were rationing the pages, savouring it to the end. Some had it finished. Some came back for another copy for a friend.

Oh my oh my.

Should you want a copy for yourself you can buy it here. It's also available on Amazon.

Portumna Forest Park and a (possible) bovine sculpture

Wednesday evening last in Portumna Castle Harbour I was wearing my usual boating clothes - polo neck, woolly cardy, fleece, longjohns under jeans. Thursday was warmer, but still fine for us to leave the dogs in the boat and go for a cycle round Portumna Forest Park. We found ourselves on trails we'd never seen before - bikes, not dog walking, makes the difference. I was beginning to regret wearing shorts and sandals as we negotiated ever-narrowing pathways with roots, rocks and briars - it's that time of year when briars go searching for new rooting grounds, sending out their spikes at two foot an hour.

Not everything is as you might expect in the Forest. This, for example, mooning beside a waterside trail.  Listening device, bovine sculpture, some class of folly, beacon of hope?

And disorientating views of the lake. We'd been going for a while and come out on the opposite side of the park to Castle Harbour. Where was this?

Then there was a humpy mound, and giant wall-looking rocks poking through the reeds.

It was only on our way back that we found the sign cunningly hidden in a trail marker that we realised what all this was: Bonaveen Harbour, hidden among the reeds and sallies. The estate sawmill used to be here. The mound was where sawdust had been dumped over many years - all grown over now, but definitely not looking natural. The big rocks were part of the estate wall, built out into the lake. Barges tied up to the quay here waiting for the rough planks from the forest to be loaded onto them and taken to Limerick where they became someone's kitchen table or chest of drawers (actually I'm guessing here, but the sign does specify furniture).

Needs a spot of dredging I think. The quay wall is in there somewhere.

The view out was of Cloondavaun Bay. You don't notice these little places when your mind is on your cruising route.




Actually this is all a tease. The really important thing (for me) happened before the cycle ride.

That's going to have a post all of its own. If my flaky internet connection will let me do it before next week.

Derg Dogs, Derg Rescue, Derg Eagles

We were sucked back to Mountshannon again on Friday evening, cruising from Dromaan and arriving just before the wind hit. We'd decided to go at the last minute because we wanted to play tunes in the hotel, with dinner at The Snug first. It was choppy enough even so - we had to go beyond Bushy and turn in there to avoid too much beam-on rocking.

Bushy Island on the right with Tountinna in the background

It's always interesting going past Bushy at the moment - the binoculars come out and keep an eye out for the white-tailed eagles who are nesting on the island. We've seen them several times now. You don't realise at first how big they are when flying until you see the other birds mobbing them. We saw the chicks on the nest too. The Eagle Trust put a webcam up with a screen in their office next to the life guard hut and there the two chicks were, already enormous with a three-foot wing span. Actually that was two weeks ago. They're probably plumping over the edge of the five-foot platform nest by now.

The Eagle Trust have taken the webcam down again now for a number of reasons, so we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

I'd been wearing shorts, crisis weeding in sunshine before we left for Dromaan. By the time we settled into the harbour it was as though we were on a different planet:

The harbour was emtpy:

And it was cold. We'd only brought summer clothes. I couldn't believe myself. I never go to the boat without at least one set of thermals (barbecue wear) and varying weights of woolly jumper.

As we sat gloomily looking out at the lake the rescue boat went out into the wild white horses. Our ropes creaked. Trees bent double.

Up in The Snug things began to look up, as they always do in a warm hostelry with good food and wine. The rescue helicopter went over.

Someone came in with the story of rowers caught out when the wind rose.

Back to the boat to pick up the instruments and the coast guard rescue boat was on the slip. The local one was coming back in.

It was only the next day we realised the extent of the rescue effort. Thirty-five rowers had been taking part in an international rowing event, starting in Terryglass and finishing in Killaloe. It was Parker Point that really did for them where the wind is split, coming from two directions and setting up pyramidal waves. Eighteen of the boats were caught out, tipping their crew into the water. Fifteen people needed treatment for hypothermia.

Next day the weather wasn't much better, but that didn't stop these unusual buskers at the Mountshannon Saturday Market:

The cellist was a professional musician from Austria, accompanied by a belly dancer from South Korea. They were WOOFERs (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) with a woman who grows blueberries (among other things) up the hill behind the village.

On Sunday (yes, we were still there, still cold) we took the dogs for a walk in Woodpark where we met other dog walkers. And look!

Frankie (on the left) has a twin! These were members of the newly formed Derg Dogs, people who meet to walk their dogs, talk about dogs, upload photos of dogs to the Facebook page. The half-head you can see at the bottom of the picture belongs to Mollie Collie the daughter of Maddie, Frankie's doppelganger, whose back legs don't work. She has wheels instead, and runs around with the rest of them.

I'm now a member of Derg Dogs.

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.

Down Lough Derg

Down Lough Derg from Portumna Castle Harbour to Dromineer. It was a bit choppy so took two hours - longer than expected because we had to tack to avoid beam-on discomfort. The wind was more westerly than expected, so a long reach from Cloondavaun Bay and again from Coose. I started the cooking on the way down, just after I received an email saying there was a comment on this blog. Another Rampart 32 owner! What a thrill. The photo revealed a sister for Winter Solstice, an older but very recognizable version, kept in Wales. So hello Roland!

Nearly lost the dinner to the floor only once as Joe turned the boat to tack the other way. Dogs perked up for a minute before resuming their 'Oh God, this again', looks. They like things to be nice and calm.

We tied up against the wall for the sake of the dogs and rocked gently. There's quite a flow comes into the harbour through holes in the harbour wall, so less sheltered than it might be. The sun went in.

Next morning I was up first to take the dogs out. The wind didn't seem too bad from the beach.

But it had been an earplugs night. The aft line was creaking creaking until we could bear it no more. Unusual. It's normally the bow line or a fender that keeps us awake.

The offending rope:

So off we went, Aoife and Frankie and I, roll of plastic bags in my pocket - a new business for the plastics trade selling bags for picking up dog shit. Not very ecologically sound, but what can you do?  In Dromineer they had these signs:



Which is very necessary. They also have these (I love the contrasting pictures of the dogs):

Unlike in Counties Galway and Clare where they've taken away all the rubbish bins (except in Mountshannon) and you have to bring it home with you. Not pleasant with these little packages. I usually find somewhere dense and green like a bunch of nettles or the middle of a spreading bush to empty the contents so at least all you have is a tied up bag.

So fair play to Tipperary. 

When one dog rolls...

                      So does the other...








We moved the boat briefly into the floating pontoons to take advantage of some electricity left in one of the meters - to hoover! Yes, the new device is on board and vacuums up dog hairs beautifully. Maybe this will be the year of the clean boat (until the novelty wears off).

Then a quick sprint across to Dromaan. Nice and sheltered there. We'd planned to go there the previous night, but when we left in the car we noticed a boat which had been in Portumna at the weekend as we were having a barbecue, running its engines and filling the harbour with fumes. I made the mistake of asking would he be doing it for long...

A new form of harbour hogging:

Nothing like parking sideways on and taking up two places.








Does this count as cruelty to hounds? I noticed these blotches when taking the morning walk. Red wine?