A day in seclusion

We took our time and had French toast before pulling up anchor. It was glass calm at first, but soon we had about 10 knots out of the NW. The barometer climbed to 1028 as a high settled over us and below an anticyclone tracking to the north. In Mayo, the weather was abysmal but not here on the Costa del Cork.



We had yet another gentle but brilliant sail in 10-15 knots. Porpoises!  We had about 12-20 porpoises bow riding alongside us the entire length of Cape Clear, a good half hour or longer. It was thrilling when they started jumping and otherwise performing while escorting us. Looking into the eyes of these creatures never gets old.

Two tacks and we were entering Toormore Bay, the next inlet over from Crookhaven. It looked rather exposed until we nosed into the cove inside Reenard Point. It was lovely. There was a large sandy beach behind huge boulders and flanked by a high rocky shore with Knockaphuca Mountain behind.

There is public access and the beach was crawling with people. They had to wade way out to get wasit deep because of the gently sloping sands. It was too shallow near low tide to land a dinghy on the beach. So we drove our dinghy to Toormore Cove around a rocky outcropping from where we were anchored. It was lovely too, with a big blue house on the hill that had its own secret beach.

We read online that we were only 5 km to Mizzen Station from here but shore leave was not on order. We were a bit exposed to the South, but it was no bother for tonight. When the beach cleared and the stars came out, we had the magical place all to ourselves. How lovely to be alone with the world.