The Gourmet Cruise on Obsession - August 2009
Donal, Marco, Ann, Piero, and Jo headed off for a delightful weekend on Ireland's east coast the weekend of 14-16 Aug 2009. Donal set the tone for the weekend in his opening email, 'to have a gentle enjoyable sail - probably not at night, ideally not in the rain and again ideally in F3-4 winds'.
The weather forecast seemed fair on Thursday, force 4-5, and we arranged to meet on Obsession at 10am, Marco was busy passage planning and Ann had already been shopping by the time we all assembled. By then the forecast was 5-6, and following crew discussions we decided to head north aiming for Carlingford on Saturday, with a stop over in Clougherhead on Fri to break the trip. One of us had been to Clougherhead before and thought it was a bit grim, but accepted that it was a neccessary stopover.
We had a very pleasant sail to Port Oriel, getting great views of helicopters landing on Rockabill on our way, but there was no denying that the wind was increasing. When we arrived into Port Oriel we were greeted by Aidan Sharkey owner/skipper of Clougherdawn the only other pleasure craft in sight. We settled Obsession, trying up to Clougherdawn in the most sheltered part of the harbour. When we settled ourselves we headed into town. The 20 minute walk into Clougherhead was well worth the effort, we found a good seafood restaurant 'Little Strand', recommended by Aidan. The sea food platter starter that the girls shared was amazing, and eveyone really enjoyed their meal. Then we headed for a few pints in one of the local bars. Interestingly none of us were able to make it to the bar with the music later, although we may have been put off by the local hawaiian dress (there was a theme party somewhere). We took ourselves and our anoracks back to Obsession.
Saturday brought discussions again with one forecast of 5-6 and locally 7, strongest in north, with gale force 8-9 forecast in Malin head. Xcweather.com showed a lighter forecast but heading further north to Carlingford was left for another time. Malahide with it's forecast lighter winds became our destination of choice. We needed to head into Malahide at high tide, so with Marco doing the sums we left Port Oriel in the mid afternnoon. This gave some of us the opportunity for a walk around Clougherhead, very pleasant indeed, ample flora and fauna to be observed.
Donal decided to prepare the 3rd reef on the mainsail, in case we needed it. We needed it. We started the sailing from Clogherhead to Malahide with two reefs and small jib and then changed to three reefs and storm jib. Obsession was very smooth considering it was F6. As the waves were quite small, we didn't even get wet.
We entered Malahide inlet at high tide on Saturday evening as planned and when the skipper took the helm, the dodgy crosswind coming into the marina berth was overcome. We were well ready for some bar food at the back of Smyths, followed by pints in Gibneys.
As we needed to leave Malahide at least 2 hours after low water on a rising tide, we enjoyed a leisurely start to Sunday, papers, stolls etc. Just as some of us were thinking of a full Irish, Donal suggested a restaurant he spotted on his morning walk, The Greedy Goose. It was fab and we really enjoyed it! The highlight of the gourmet cruise. After lunch we headed back accross Dublin Bay with a reef in and out again as the wind continued to change. It was a lovely cruise, very enjoyable, but Donal never quite got his F3-4 with sunshine, maybe next time....
