We had left Dunmore East and we were at last travelling towards new horizons. I love going new places and my sense of anticipation was high. We were also sailing which I love so as far as I was concerned things were going well.
The wind was up and we were sailing along at a good clip. Beverley, complained that I was not allowing her to make a cup of tea, because we had started with full sail but we had needed to reduce our sail area, so I had needed her for that, then I had seen a pot so we had tacked away from that, so I had kept her busy. This activity was keeping Beverley away from her very important task and that was tea making. It would have been great to film some of it but we were all hands on deck.
At last our speed had reduced to the rather pedestrian speed of 4.7knots, and Salty Lass was stable, so Beverley could at last make her tea. When Beverley, went downstairs she had a very weak flame at the cooker, so she thought that it was time for a new gas bottle. So I went downstairs so that I could monitor things downstairs, while Beverley, changed the gas bottle. Even when she had changed the bottle, the flow of gas was still poor, so at this point we thought that it was a problem with the hose or with the gas regulator. Lack of tea had put Beverley in a foul mood, so she was letting off steam like a good one, but she wisely did not put that footage in the video.
We thought that we would be able to get enough gas from a different gas bottle that we had on board, but even that did not have enough gas to boil the kettle. So with no spare on board, we decided to go back to Dunmore East as that was the closest destination to where we were. It was at this point that that the wind died, so we had to put the motor on. The only bright part of our day was that a pod of dolphins came to cheer us up and for the time that they trailed us which was ½ hour, the longest display that we have had to date, it was just magical.
After motoring back to Dunmore East, we had a bowl of cereal for lunch before heading into town to see if we could get a regulator. Well Dunmore East came up empty, so I contacted the chandler at Kilmore Quay, to be told that they did have what we needed. What Dunmore East did have was cooked meats, so Beverley and I had a sandwich, before setting off for Kilmore Quay.
Once we knew we were off to Kilmore Quay, I looked at the tides to see when low tide was in Kilmore. It was then that I realised that we would have to put a shimmy on to get there two hours before low tide. We were able to motor sail, and we kept the motor on at low revs so that it gave us the advantage we needed while not using up too much fuel and we made it in time. At Kilmore the low spot which is just outside Kilmore's entrance was at 1m below our keel and there was two hours of tide to go. Unfortunately the chippy was closed, so it was another round of butties for tea.
The next day Beverley went to the chandlers to buy new gas regulators. She bought two, one to be used now and one as a spare, we are not having this issue again. We tested both regulators, by the tried and tested method of using them but I was worried that she was using too much gas in the process.
