Ireland - Cape Clear Island

The ferry to Cape Clear left at a very civilized hour, 10:30am, so there was no need for alarms and we had a leisurely (though light) breakfast.

We had booked our tickets on line after having checked the weather. Light winds. Low chance of rain. When we got to the pier they had our names on the list and issued us tickets.

The Sherkin Island ferry was rafted up to us on the pier and had to leave before we could.

Our skipper. He was all business as we left the harbour but out to sea he read his newspaper, just looking up occasionally to make course corrections.

Out past the pleasure craft,

the crab fisherman,

the Baltimore beacon and the rugged coastline of Sherkin Island.

Way out to sea, look closely, we spotted fins.

We're assuming dolphins. Its good feeding grounds so there are also a number of different whales that spend their summers here.

Plenty of fish for the cormorants too.

An unhappy passenger (though he did play it up a bit for the sympathy)

Ruined church and old gravestones next to the North Harbour (where the ferry docks).

When we talked to the woman in Baltimore who checked us in and gave us out tickets she said there was a shuttle from the dock to the Heritage Centre but that we should have no trouble walking up the hill to it in about 10mins. Ha!

Later I took this picture of that road. It took us at least half an hour.

Dates of the 2 different lighthouses, one on the island and one on the Fastnet rock.

"Crazy people, you know there's a shuttle right?"

The heritage centre had displays on the history of the island, farming, fishing, the great famine, the world wars

and lots of info and videos about the building of the Fastnet Lighthouse and the Fastnet Race that goes from the Isle of Wight to the Fastnet Rock and then to Plymouth. The 1979 race was tragic....

A worse-than-expected storm on the third day of the race wreaked havoc on over 306 yachts taking part in the biennial race, resulting in 18 fatalities (15 yachtsmen and 3 rescuers). Emergency services, naval forces, and civilian vessels from around the west side of the English Channel were summoned to aid what became the largest ever rescue operation in peace-time. This involved some 4,000 people including the entire Irish Naval Service's fleet, lifeboats, commercial boats, and helicopters.^[1][2]
 from Wikipedia.
 .. of the 306 yachts taking part, 5 were sunk, 100 suffered knock downs, and 77 rolled (that is turtled) at least once due to high winds and "mountainous seas ..
from Wikipedia

The young man (American) who ran the heritage centre assured us there was plenty of time to walk down to the South harbour before catching the ferry again.. "its a small island".

Palm trees and fuchsia.

Brilliant hydrangeas.

Horse in the gorse.

The fuchsia love this island.

The north harbour was a small, stone beach cove. The hostel had their laundry out.

The other option there was glamping.

The bar at the south harbour wasn't open but stated "no food served, only serious drinks"

Between the two harbours, a memorial to those who died in the '79 Fastnet. We learned later that our ferry was one of the boats that went out to help with the rescue.

The restaurant/bar at the North harbour was open. When I saw "warm apple pie and hot custard" I couldn't resist.

Nic went for the open faced smoked salmon on gluten free bread. We learned here that Ireland has a high percentage of people with coeliac disease and that is why Nicola is having no problem finding gluten free meals in the restaurants. Looking it up on-line, the theory is that the Irish diet, before the famine, had very little gluten in it, the only cereal was oats, and now the diet is the same as everywhere else and they have an intolerance for the gluten.