The wind and rain overnight has passed through, leaving a bright morning…albeit with the promise of more to come.

Final preparations around the boat, and we slip the mooring just on High Water, to take the first of the ebb away from Malahide…

The SE winds overnight have kicked up a bit of a swell, which is breaking over the shallows at the entrance, but nothing to bother us…

With a fresh SW breeze we are almost on a dead run and opt for just a genoa. We have quite a large one, but with the benefit for us of roller furling. It loses something in performance as it is progressively furled, but without tame gorilla’s on a heaving foredeck to change sails, it is a great compromise.  We briefly consider using the cruising chute…..even bigger, but with the wind set to veer and increase, we take the easy way out.

Heydays soon settles in to a decent 6 knots through the water, and we even have time to muse over the weather fronts coming through, bringing some amazing clouds and even a rainbow.

This part of the country is quite flat, with what appears to be nice beaches. Lambey island is soon astern, and we so want the lighthouse to be called Rockabilly, but the Irish in a rare dour moment call it Rockabill…

As the morning wears on, the wind is most definitely at the top end of the forecast. Soon, we’re experiencing quite frequent gusts well into F7 territory. As we roll away some genoa, we’re grateful that we didn’t use the ‘chute. As it is, the autohelm has a hard time keeping pace with waves which are building nicely over the port quarter. Every so often, a larger pair come through, and Heydays lifts up her skirts and surfs down into the trough at well over 8kts. It requires quite a bit of concentration to keep her heading where we want to go.

The only boats we see are a small trawler heading home and a couple of coasters heading into Carlingford Lough…no mad dogs as far as we can see.

By early afternoon, Drogheda and the Boyne are well astern, and the Mountains of Mourne are clearly visible, and it is time for us to start to look for the lights and buoys to lead us in.

If we had thought that landfall would bring us an easier time, we were sadly mistaken. Even in what we thought would be the lee of the mountains, we are still getting gusts of over 30kts, and enough of a swell even across a short fetch, to dump the occasional lump of salty water over us.

As we make our final approach to the little marina at Carlingford, a sudden strong gust sets up a mini waterspout. Sadly we’re too busy with fenders and ropes etc to get any sort of shot.

Once safely moored, we’re into a couple of gins plus snacks to tide us over before dinner, and reflecting on what was a much bumpier ride than expected.

It’s also odd in some ways, to be moored on one side of the Lough in the Republic, while just a few hundred meters away is Ulster and the UK, with a freight ferry from Heysham to Warrenpoint….and all the attendant nonsense about trade with the EU, borders and customs…

As the sun sets over the mountain, we still get a reminder of what is outside, as a sudden down draft or squall comes whistling through, well into gale territory, even in this supposedly sheltered spot.