Leg 12: Dingle to Bantry by Addie Kane
After over a week of the Celtic Most being unable to leave Dingle Marina, the crew arriving for Leg 12 were hoping to see a change. Most of the crew arrived on a windy Saturday to the boat. The crew consisted of myself (Addie), Eliza, Julia, Jane, Ulrika, Lynn, Skipper Paul and, of course, our marine biologist Hélène. The national rowing championships were held in Dingle and the tide was strong. Since none of us would be leaving for a while, we made the most of our stay in Dingle. There are worse places to be stuck than the popular, Kerry, seaside town and with many bars, restaurants and quirky shops, there was plenty to keep us occupied until our departure from the marina on Tuesday afternoon.
Our course was from Dingle to Valencia to dock in a small town called Knightstown. We made as quick a journey there as possible due to the unpredictable winds that still blew and the rough swell of the sea. It was a fairly uneventful three hour trip with sightings being near impossible with the Sea so rough. Though the journey was quick and not great for spotting cetaceans, it was a nice change from sitting on the boat for another day, battling each other in another -very- competitive game of Uno. We made it to Knightstown where some of us had a brief look about while we waited for dinner.
That evening we went to the local pub where we played pool for a while -longest games of history with many trick shot- and just enjoyed a bit of time somewhere new. The next day was going to be an eight hour day to anchor in Bunaw. The sea was particularly rough and some on board found the swell a bit sickening but luckily no one actually got sick. After I had an unfortunate run in with the table on deck and it hit my leg during a rough wave, we all began to hope we would get to port soon. Once again, sightings were very difficult and we only spotted some animals from a distance, but they were few and far between. Even if cetaceans were hard to spot, we enjoyed the company of many sea birds like gannets, guillemots, shearwaters, Sabine’s gull, permitting our junior biologist and nature lover to practice their photography and identification skills. By the time we were anchored in Kenmare river we were all tired and hoping for better weather to come our way. We enjoyed a last sighting that day, a small colony of common seals with pups resting 500m from the boat.
The next morning seemed promising, the drastic conditions had lessened and we now stood a chance of seeing some animals a little easier and we were not disappointed. Sailing out from Bunaw we got to see gannets feeding and a group of common dolphins who came right up to the Celtic Mist with their calves and stayed to bow ride for a while before disappearing again. We also caught sight of a minke whale feeding nearby. It came up a few times before also disappearing. Though the seas were better, we were hit with a strong wind as we came out and around the peninsula, swell made spotting difficult but we managed to spot very briefly common dolphins and more Minkes between waves. Finally, we succeeded to sail into Bantry Bay on schedule. We anchored again just off Bere Island and settled down for one of our last nights on board.
Our last day of sailing started with a 7 a.m. swim and saw beautiful weather and calm waters. Unfortunately for us, the dolphins and whales must have taken that opportunity to get out of the bay and into the open sea as we sailed for hours with only two sightings of porpoises for the day. Though there was not much in the way of cetaceans, we still got to enjoy the beautiful landscape and gentle waters as we arrived into Bantry on what was becoming a scorcher of a day. This leg coincided with an event on MPAs with Fairseas and some of the representatives of Fairseas got to come onboard and see Celtic Mist if they hadn’t already. From Bantry, the crew slowly trickled out, bringing Leg 12 to an end.
Addie
This week, we had 24 sightings, mostly common dolphins, but we also spotted 5 harbour porpoises in Bantry bay and common seals in Kenmare river. We spent 20 hours on watch (looking for animals) for a total of 25 hours and 127 nautical miles sailing (235 km). Even with this rough sea conditions we were able to spot animals and that wasn’t easy, I’m very proud of our crew! Thank you for this funny week, full of laughter and UNO competitions -this game brings out the best in us, thank you Ulrika for this brilliant idea!