Kinsale, Ireland

Man, this place is green. I mean everywhere you look, you see green trees, green grass, green bushes, green fields, green leprechauns.....just kidding. I haven't seen any of the latter, but I'm keeping my eye out.

We are in Kinsale now, and the place is very quaint. Quintana is nestled inside the harbour and anchored right next to town. We have had nice weather for two out of the three days we've been here. I'm counting my blessings, because Ireland is known for it's rain.

We have done some touristy things as well. We walked up to Charles Fort on Tuesday. It was about an hours walk through a nice path along the water. Charles Fort is situated on the east side of Kinsale harbour. It was completed in 1678 and is a large star-shaped fort that is still in excellent condition. Across the harbour on the west side is James Fort. It was completed in 1607 and is a bit of a ruin, but still lovely to see. We walked up to James Fort today with the sun shining brightly and warming our backs against the cool breezes that are still blowing this far north.

We also went to Desmond Castle. This castle is small in comparison to some castles, but it's built very tall with minimal entrances and windows. They built these "tower" castles for defense against invaders like the English. The raiding parties would have had a difficult time breaching these "tower" castles.

Desmond Castle is now an international wine museum. We learned that Kinsale was one of the major wine ports of Ireland, going back to 1412. In the 17th and 19th century, many Irish families fled due to religious persecution, and also English persecution. These families that fled were called the "Wildgeese." The first families left after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. They mostly sailed to France, where the French King gifted vineyards to many of the Irish who served in the French army against England. Some of the famous Irish vineyards are Chateau Haut Brion, and Domaine Ile de Margaux. Later, some "Wildgeese" also settled in California and started vineyards such as Carneros Creek, Murphy-Goode, and Roche Vineyards. Pretty cool stuff, especially for those wine-drinkers out there.

Well, enough of the history lesson. We are enjoying the heck out of this place, but will be leaving soon bound for other very green Irish harbours. Until then...

Some Info:
1. Desmond Castle built in the 16th century by the Earl of Desmond, Maurice Bacach Fitzgerald.
2. A bottle of Haut Brion can run in the neighborhood of 2000 dollars (US) at fine dining establishments.
3. The Treaty of Limerick (1691) ended the Williamite Wars between the Jacobites and the supporters of William of Orange.
4. Boat stuff: good anchoring with little current. Shopping at SuperValue but quite expensive. NO laundry facilities. No UHT Milk. Propane available (camping gas) at Mylie Murphys in town.

Cork Harbour, Ireland

Hi! We made it to Ireland....land of the beer, home of the pub!!!!! Paul and I are in Crosshaven, in the county Cork. Crosshaven is a beautiful river that meanders between tall green and wooded hills. The oldest yacht club in the world is here. The Royal Cork Yacht Club was founded in the mid 1700s. We are anchored up the river about 2 miles from the town of Crosshaven in a small bend in the river. Our only neighbors are a few sailboats on mooring, and the trees. It's very protected, and we are only dealing with a small current of about .5 knots. Quintana is nice and snug.

We left Falmouth on the 19th of May, and sailed to Penzance where we anchored for the night. We left the next morning, and made our way app. 22 miles to the Scilly Isles. We stayed two nights in the Scillies and unfortunately didn't leave the boat. We were anchored amongst some islands and sandbars which was beautiful but we didn't know when we were going to leave since the weather was slightly changing on a daily basis. We did leave the second day in the evening and made it to Ireland 28 hours later.

We will be leaving Crosshaven tomorrow (Monday May 27th) bound for Kinsale.

So far the people we have met have been very nice. Alot of the people here speak Irish Gaelic which I mistakenly thought was not common, but seems to be very common. All the signs are in English and Irish Gaelic, and in the grocery store I heard about 30% of the people speaking Gaelic.

Here are a few sayings, spelled in English, Irish, then phonetically:
1. Cheers, Slainte, sloynta
2. Thank you, Go raibh maith agat, guh rev mah agut
3. Goodbye and blessings with you, Slan agus beannacht leat, slawn oog-us ban-ocked lyaf.

I have not tried an Irish beer yet, but today seems a good a time as any!

ps. Please pray for my Grandpa who just had a heart attack, and an open bipass operation. You're positive thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Bye Everyone.

Boredom is a Bad Thing

Hi! We've been in Falmouth for almost a month waiting for a weather window, and we have walked all the footpaths, walked the town so many times locals are starting to smile and wave: we have gorged ourselves on the local "pasti" (a fried pastry filled with a savory), basically enjoyed Falmouth so much that, frankly, I'm sick of it. Don't get me wrong, Falmouth is well worth the stop, but when you are ready to go.....well, heck....you ARE READY TO GO!!!!!
This is the first dye job!!! AHH!!!!

I've become bored, and when I become bored...uh oh....I do crazy things. When we were waiting for engine parts in Bayona, Spain I cut my hair off. I had spent an entire year growing it out, and in one swift bored moment...snip, snip went the hair into a bob. In La Rochelle, France the rain did not let up for an entire week, so I decided to match the dark weather and died my hair dark brown. Some of you saw my dark look in the Christmas cards sent. Now, I'm in Falmouth, England and we are waiting for a weather window to cross to Ireland, and I've done it again....I've died my hair red! Why red you may ask? Well, I thought since I was going to Ireland, I would look like a local "Irish" lass. I've done some weird and wild things to my hair, but the red has topped the marker.

Let me digress. Yesterday, I went and bought a nice darkish red, went to the shower, and followed the instructions for hair coloring. As I waited I began to notice my hair WAS NOT resembling the beautiful redhead on the package (I bet she was Irish), but my hair was becoming a new color for Crayons! I named the color Wacky Red. As you see on the posting, it's R..E..D RED! The camera doesn't even do it justice. Pippy Longstocking doesn't have a thing on me....I could of been cast for Pippy, Little Orphan Annie, or even Anne of Green Gables!

I immediately wrote to Danielle, my sister-in-law who also happens to be an awesome hairdresser. She was great. She told me not to panic (phhhh, ya right), and to go and buy a medium brown to counteract the red in my hair. I did as she said, and now I still have
red hair, but it's not R..E..D...RED! anymore. I can live with this until I get bored again, and decide to dye my hair back to it's normal, or close to it's normal color again.

Why do I do things like this? My husband asks me this all the time. The answer.....I was bored.
Hope everyone is great. We'll hopefully be writing our next log from Ireland!

Second time around...much better!

Still in Falmouth

Hello one and all! Well, we are still in Falmouth. Wouldn't you know....the moment we want to take off for Ireland we have west winds, not for one day, or even two, but for a whole damn week!!!!! And the west wind is strong, so we can't even motor into it, or we'll bash the heck out of Quintana and ourselves. If there is one thing I have learned in my years of cruising, is to believe whole heartedly in "Murphy's Law."

We are now paying for the pleasure of putting our own hook down in Falmouth. We have been lucky for the last two weeks, not to have been charged, but our luck has run out so it's costing us app. 75.oo Canadian for the week. We do get to put our dinghy at the marina now, and also have the use of the showers. And boy-o-boy am I going to take advantage of that.....I'm going to have loooooonnnngggg showers with lots of hot water as many times as I can, even if I don't need a shower. I'm going to walk around all pruny, and water-winkled, but that's okay, because I'll be getting my monies' worth and a cruiser always wants his monies worth and always enjoys a long, hot shower. It's a novelty (the long, hot showers) not practiced on Quintana. Our showers are quick and to the point.

So, the crew will be reading alot this week, playing on wifi, doing some passage planning, and walking whenever the rain and wind allows. Bye for now.

Falmouth/St.Mawes/St.Just

Hi Everyone. We are really enjoying England. I think we have picked the best time to come, with temperatures in the 70s... it's a bit cool, but the flowers are blooming, the grass is green, the trees have new leaves and the weather has been sunny most of the time.

We sailed across the Fal River to St. Mawes, a two mile journey, on Monday. The winds were strong from the East and the Falmouth anchorage had become uncomfortable. It was the perfect excuse to do some touring a little farther afield.

We took a hike along the St. Anthony Headland footpath on Monday. The day was sunny, the wind brisk, and the walk beautiful. These footpaths are located all over England, and anyone can enjoy their beauty. They go through farmer's fields, along cliffs and coastline, near castles, and estates, and they are numerous which means you could spend days on end just hiking through local footpaths wherever you are in England. In the Falmouth area, there are over eight that I know of.

Anyway, the St. Anthony Headland goes through some steep pasture land with cows grazing along terraced hills. The path also takes you along the cliffs next to the sea, right up to the lighthouse that welcomes sailors into Falmouth Harbour. Paul and I discovered a small beach, and cave. The rocks inside were smooth and black, with striations, and markings. There was also numerous pieces of sea glass which I collected and hope to use in some jewelry. I was fascinated by the coloring and smoothness of the seaglass, and my imagination went wild wondering how old each piece was and where it came from.

Later in the day, we explored St. Mawes, a charming small village, and also found out we should hike another footpath that would take us to St. Just where an old church and garden were nestled next to a creek.

Tuesday morning we took off towards the church. We were rewarded with seeing another of Henry VIII's castles situated on another headland adjacent to St. Mawes. Paul and I walked through farmer's fields, and walked over small wooden bridges where tiny creeks gurgled down from the hills. We arrived at the church after an hour hike and decided to stop for a picnic. We sat on a bench overlooking the creek next to the St. Just church, and enjoyed our sandwiches and tea. The church is idyllic and quaint. It dates back to 500AD, and I had never seen an older church before. Some of the headstones were so old, that you could no longer read the writing. I'm usually not "into" gravesites, but this one was beautiful with interesting Celtic crosses adorning some of the graves. It is also surrounded by a green-filled garden. Large mature trees dot the landscape, and well-tended flowers are everywhere. We walked through the gardens, and then went into the church. Paul and I were both silent and a little bit in awe at the ageless beauty inside. I could imagine ladies and knights coming to Sunday mass, sitting in the wooden pews. An old Englishman pointed out some important dates chiseled in stone, and mentioned a lapse of some years in the timeline......he says those were the years of the Crusades and so priests and noblemen were quite busy at the time, and not able to get back to their local churches to update the stones which give each church it's history.

We are back in Falmouth now, and need to do some long awaited chores like grocery shopping and laundry.

I loaded some pictures up on picasa, so you can go to the link on our blog and see.
Love to all.