Day 20- Tuesday 7th May. Walletless in Wicklow

Spent some time on the Internet last night trying to get to grips with Irish history. There are references all over South East Ireland in the the struggle for liberation. There are several statues of people who died in the uprisings in 1798. Now I don't want to expose my ignorance and a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but my reading did help me understand better the long struggle for Independence from England and the different roles the catholics and protestants played in this. What I hadn't appreciated was that Wolfe Tone had travelled to France to ask them to help the Irish out with their struggle with England. A force of 14,000 soldiers set off but never landed because of storms.Later, a force of 3000 did make it but Tone was arrested. he cut his own throat to take away the opportunity of the English to execute him. The uprisings were inspired by the American war of Independence and the French liberation. All this is very involved and interesting stuff but what is clear is that there is a strong residual sense of repression by the English, which surfaces all over the place.

Near to this poster there was a shop, which seem to be fairly clear about who it was aimed at. It was closed so I couldn't find out if it sold everything the males of the species would be after.

Arklow is a strange little marina. It was set up as a requirement of the  redevelopment of the ship yards. Its too small to be viable, so the owners seem to charge quite a lot for what is on offer. At 28 Euros for my boat it seems to be one of the more expensive ones around. The owners seem to try and make up for it by having boxes of tissues on the toilets and a range of scented hand soaps. I'd have preferred a washing machine!The crows were ransacking the waste bin which was parked outside the toilet door.They don't listen out on the marine radio for people coming in and the office is not always manned. I can't see how it can continue for much longer as it is.

I set off at 8.00. The forecast was for showers, heavy at time with possibly thunder and hail.Gales were likely to hit the west of Ireland but it seemed to be OK for my run up to Dublin.With the threat of such strong winds in the area, I tend to be over cautious and reef the sails. I'll supplement this with the outboard if progress seems slow. I didn't get to pass very close to the off-shore wind farm after all, but I took a long distance photo.

It is a very beautiful coast line. If the Brecon beacons was on the coast and the beaches had white sand and sand dunes then it would look like this. Squally clouds hung over the hills and moved out to sea,It was very dramatic. As the tidal range is so small buildings seem to be on fairly low lying land. This gives the place a fiord rather than coast line feel.

 

The Irish Radio 1 played an unlikely combination of pop music and an evaluation of the contribution of of Jung, Freud and Adler. It was a very thoughtful and instructive programme.It had a light hearted aspect to it when evaluating the meaning of dreams, but it seemed to strike a better balance of providing entertainment and information than the BBC manages most of the time.The characterisation of personality types based on predilections for thinking, feeling,sensing and intuiting was something i was familiar with, but with the commentator referring to "tinkers" it gave it an amusing slant. the person he was interviewing was Michael Murphy, who was just about to have a civil ceremony with his male partner of 26years. It was a very personal bit to bolt on the end of the programme

The radio was full of the ecolli outbreak. The switch of blame from Spanish cucumbers to German bean sprouts led the commentator to say that having got it wrong about the cucumbers  people" were once bitten twice shy" to claim they had tracked down the actual source. They continue with such great similes on Irish radio!.

After about an hour and a half there was a call for yacht Hylje from the coast guard.I had left my wallet in the wash room in Arklow!. I was level with Wickford, so entered the harbour to phone Arklow Marina, The owner offered to drive up the coast with it.I was so grateful as I was contemplating either sailing back or having to take a taxi.
I seem to be forgetting stuff all the time at the moment . In wexford I undid the straps on my bike holding on my laptop then walked into the shop without it! I frequently get to my wifi destination and find I've forgotten my camera, note book or something else important. Leaving my wallet behind was the final straw. The owner arrived and said he'd heard I wasn't too impressed with the marina Ever the diplomat, and so thankful for his drive up to meet me I said I'd found it very clean (which it was) and I just needed a washing machine.

I had not lost much time, so was able to leave Wickford and carry on to Dublin, The forecast was still talking about some very strong winds over night and I'd rather be in a big  town if I was going to be storm bound.

Just of Bray harbour, I think I saw a Minke whale. It was a slow moving creature with a small fin astern of me. I had seen these before off Mull, so I  was pretty confident. It was too far away to take a photo.

The Poolbeg pontoons are operated by a yacht club that welcomes visiting sailors.I wanted to experience Dublin rather than some flashy marina and I hoped this would make my stay more affordable. Nobody was around in the club, but i was told there was a meeting at 7 and people would be around then.

On my walk to find a wifi pub, I thought the small single storey terrace was a bit like the Scottish ones I've seen. Some of the cars in the street were almost as big as the properties.

There was an outlet for some really fast food!

Dublin is a pretty major harbour and I came well into the city center to moor up in Poolbeg Marina. Dublin obviously likes to compete with London. It has its own O2 arena, Eye and stadium. It will take a lot of time to explore it.

Dublin takes me almost to the limit of the charts I had purchased. I didn't want to buy the lot before i left just in case I didn't use them if sothing prevented me from continuing. I think I shall have to stay in Dublin tomorrow and go and find some for the next bit of the journey. I'm fooling a bit zonked anyway, so another break would be good.