We managed to leave on time on the 11th July sailing from Rhu. We had a force 5 north westerly, which blew us down to Dun Loughaire in 26 hours. We met the Readmans on Te Bhan at the marina, which is now outside the Royal Irish Yacht Club. We had an interesting visit to Dublin on the Dart. Dublin is much busier than we remembered, with far more tourists. Us and half the world.

The statue of Molly Malone was very striking and started Will singing again!!!

A good sail to Arklow through fishing fleets off Wicklow, but against the wind this time. We tried out the new sayes rig, self steering, which really does appear to work well.

Went to Kitty's pub for dinner with Te Bhan crew and had excellent duck! The pontoons and marina are probably the smallest in the world.

Mostly with the tides and through St Patrick's Bridge ( a gap in the rocks) to Kilmore Quay for another nice dinner in the Silver Fox. There were a couple of Galway Hookers in a painting on the wall, but the waitresses went very red when Will exclaimed that there were a couple of hookers at the end of the room.

Youghall was our next port of call. This is where Sir Walter Raleigh smoked the first pipe of tabacco in Europe. It is ironic that tobacco smoking is now banned almost everywhere, including the pubs in Ireland.

We passed the 500 boats racing at Cork week on the way to register for the Irish Cruising Club 75th Anniversary Cruise in Company. This we did in Kinsale. It rained. Kinsale is quite similar to Tarbet, Loch Fyne, although bigger and with more pubs and restaurants.

We were entertained with 700 other people to a reception and dinner in Cork City Hall on Margarets birthday. It was a great feat of organisation to bus us all from Kinsale to the Royal Cork Yacht Club at Crosshaven and then on to dinner. The cruise in company called in at Glandore, Castlehaven, Baltimore, round the Fastnet Rock to Schull (pronounced Skull). Then on to Bere island, Lawrence's Cove and finally Glengarriff. Many parties were enjoyed along the way with the Bandits (Gumleys and Pollets), Seekers (Wilsons and Morrisons), Te Bhans (Readmans), Pinocchios (Fairleys) and Linties, Zubenubis, Karela and others from the CCC and USA. They very kindly gave us a Bon Voyage card, which will travel with us in the visitors book.

We are presently getting the washing done in Castletownbere, where we are taking advantage of the internet cafe. Maybe one day we'll be able to send an economic update from the boat. If anyone has any ideas as to how this might be done we will be pleased to hear from you. Just use willrudd@hotmail.com and hopefully we can collect this on the boat.