Phoenix from the Ashes by Justin Tyers

Author:Justin Tyers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

7 A Pilgrimage to the Hebrides

‘For natural beauty,’ said Frank Cowper, writing a hundred years ago, ‘the Mourne Mountains, with the splendid facilities for sailing afforded by Carlingford Lough, can compare with any part I know, and will not suffer by the comparison.’ We marvelled at his courage to go into Carlingford Lough at all, engineless, because at the entrance – which is mostly obstructed by rocks and shoals – the tide runs at up to 5 knots. If the wind had failed, he and his ship would have been lost.

We prepared our engine for starting – it’s not very technical: I open the seacock to allow a flow of cooling water, and Linda says: ‘If that engine doesn’t start, we’ll take the bastard out and scrap it.’ We’d sighted the navigational aids to the lough easily enough, visible as they are from miles away – but instead of reassuring us, they struck us more in the way of an early warning. Our nerves were jangling with the numerous cautions that the Nautical Almanac had fired across our bow, finally putting us on notice that ‘Yachts may be stopped by naval vessels’. We looked about for gunboats as we passed close by the Hellyhunter Buoy a mile from the entrance, but, seeing none, took this as permission to come in, and threw ourselves into the rapids on a course of 310°, to be sucked into the lough like a leaf floating on a river in spate.

We had intended to strike off to the starboard side once we were past the worst of the maelstrom marked by the Haulbowline Light and the gloomy ruined blockhouse – which remains, despite being ruined in Cowper’s day – but everything was happening so quickly that we lost our bearings for a moment and decided to let the tide sweep us on through the main channel. A container ship bound for Warrenpoint at the head of the lough, approaching us fast from behind and intending to overtake, gave two blasts on his horn, with the meaning ‘I am altering course to port’ – which came as no surprise, since the deep-water channel, too, intended to alter course to port within a couple of hundred yards – his idea, very sensibly, was to ensure that we were aware of his presence and kept out of his way. He removed his cap and waved it cheerfully from the bridge as he passed us; we waved back – steadying our mugs of tea, steering with a hip jutted against the tiller, and trying desperately to remain smiling and standing as we rolled over his bow wave. Six miles later, near the head of the lough, long after calm had been restored, Caol Ila blew like a feather on a duck pond amid towering green hills – for which Ireland is famous – and dropped her anchor nearly a mile offshore from Rosstrevor. We would have approached more closely, but for the shallow waters in which we could almost wade ashore.

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