The rest of Saturday night passed without incident, although none of the bodies on Heydays would have noticed even if there was. The morning was bright and with a planned get away for around noon, the morning was spent rather leisurely….a bit of breakfast, a bit of shopping  (it seems no boat can do without a shoehorn),  and then a pleasant lunch….life is hard at times!

It turns out that Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck was filmed here in 1954.

Youghal on a Saturday morning is not the busiest, presumably as a result of Friday night lock-ins. A pleasure boat is doing trips up river….apparently Dyson has a big and impressive house here….and he is dealing with a soon to be rowdy wedding anniversary party. Plenty of booze and nosh is loaded, and then to our surprise the women all get off leaving the men to their boozy cruise, while they are apparently off to “decorate the pub”.

We take pity on the skipper and make him a coffee. Of the outcome of the wedding celebrations we will see nothing as we slip the mooring and wave good by to Youghal.

With a steady force 4 or 5 in the forecast we let out all but a few rolls in the genny and a single reef in the main. As we nose out of the river we set a course for Dungarven, ready to tick off the headlands once more. It is a glorious broad reach for a while and Heydays is scudding along at over 6 knots with tantalising glimpses of the Comeragh mountains darkly in the background.

We are mindfull though, that we can’t get to Dungarven too early as there is a distinct lack of water in the harbour. As we round Ram Head we are on more of a dead run, which is a) slower but also b) slightly less comfy as we have a following sea which continually threatens an accidental gybe…not much fun in what is now a steady force 5 with occasional stronger gusts.

We heave to and drop the main,  and with just a genny we are slower but definitely more comfy and manageable. We guess that the more gung ho racing types will now be screaming at us, but we can now enjoy the sail and the sunny afternoon.

Half the crew reach a new low, however, as Saints go 1.0 down within 20 minutes of the new season…..

Another ping on the phone……YESSSS Saints have equalised in the 90th minute!!! Another ping…uh oh….have we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory???. We’ve only won it in the 96th minute. Our neighbour messages to thank us…..he put £10 on a Saints win at 7:1 with only 20 minutes left. We look forward to a slap up meal…..

As if on cue and sharing the joy, a small group of dolphins take a breather as they swim in the opposite direction…none of us has a camera ready…

…and we go back to ticking off the headlands….Harrylock and finally Helvick.

Dungarven harbour opens up and we start to pay close attention to the depth sounder. Slightly worryingly, the normally very accurate Navionics charts don’t seem to agree with the actual depths we’re finding….and a couple of buoys seem to have moved. We double check and slow down, prepared for swift evasive action, just glad that we had planned to do this on a rising tide.

At least Ballynacourty Lighthouse hasn’t moved and we now have sight of a clear set of channel buoys leading us in. The run up to the town is about 4 miles and the harbourmaster will be waiting for us apparently.  In the final approach, the buoys run out and navionics is conflicted. We opt to follow the line of moored boats, betting that this will approximate to the deep water. This turns out to be a mistake and we grind to a halt on the mud. With motor hard astern, we slide off again and feel our way gingerly to some deeper water and the pontoon.  Nothing damaged except a bit of pride. It’s a good job that only half of Dungarvan appears to be watching from The Anchor…

We take the opportunity for a shower in the sailing club before the obligatory stout…Guinness only, this time, but slips down a treat nonetheless.

An Indian on the waterfront suited the mood and we had a stroll round the square to check out the music. 

A hen party belting out ABBA didn’t do it, nor did a DJ, and sadly the diddle de de music wasn’t starting ’till 10. After the previous night’s lock-in, none of us were especially up for another late night….and we plan to catch the early tide, and…!