We arrived in Howth quite late, so once we had secured Salty Lass and knew that she was safe, we went down below and crashed out.
The next day, once we had filled in the paperwork at the marina, we went on an explore around Howth. It has a thriving trawling harbour, so there was fish mongers and fish restaurants everywhere, especially on the quay side. I loved the fish mongers, the variety and the quality of the fish on sale, was fantastic. It was a beautiful day, so as we walked around we took in the sights, like the Ireland's eye, which looks like a Scottie dog. Up above Howth, we found a Martello tower, which are very common on the south coast. However, the one at Howth, is a modern one as it is made of concrete. Later that evening we watched the local sail boats come in after an evening sail, while the sun came down.
While we had walked around Howth, we had bought some cord to make flag hoists, so that we could put up our courtesy flag up and our shapes, such as the anchor shape, or the motoring shape. Seeing as we now had the cordage, it meant that one of us had to go up the mast. Beverley drew the short straw, so that meant that she got to go up the mast. We have two Bosums chairs, but the one that looked the safest needed two hoists and we only have the one, so she used the one that looked like a seat, rather than the one that looked like a climbers hoist. As I winched Beverley up I got the rope that I was using I got the rope in a huge tangle as the pressure was at the top rather than at the bottom as it should be. So Beverley was stuck up the mast for a bit before I managed to lower her down.
Once we had managed to get the hoists up, we left Howth. We had planned to go to the Skerries, but that is not a good anchorage for winds with a northerly component, but there were a few other anchorages that we thought that we could give a try. The one that we choose was a rather open anchorage, but the winds were so light, that we could get away with it. So we settled down, for our second anchoring.
That night went well, but we had put a ball on the anchor as we were unsure of the ground. As we lifted the anchor, Beverley said,
"Just, make sure that we do not drive over the ball".
I was not quite ready to lift the ball, as I had not got the boat hook ready, by the time I got the boat hook ready, we had driven over the ball. The engine stalled straight away. For a few minutes we had no idea about what to do, but we soon decided to lift the anchor all the way so that we could remove the ball. Once done, we dropped the anchor so that we were safe. I then tried to get the rope off, the prop by leading it back, but it was well and truly stuck. Although we were safe there was nothing else to do but to call for assistance.
The assistance came in the form of Howth lifeboat, who gave us a tow back into Howth as the sun rose. It was a glorious sunrise as the sun came up and we were towed back to Howth.
