Rory Fitzgerald
There’s something wonderfully retro about the summer holidays of 2020. Irish people are holidaying in Ireland again – just like they did in the old days, before foreign holidays became de rigeur. The byways of West Cork and Kerry are again filled with Irish registration plates. Some come all the way from places as exotic as Cavan and Sligo.
One great thing about Irish people is the ease with which conversation flows. We can speak to people we’ve just met as though we’ve known them for years. Our gigantic Irish wolfhound puppy was the starting point for many such amiable conversations during our fortnight’s holiday, which was spent drifting slowly along the west Cork and Kerry coast. The coronavirus pandemic had accelerated my plans to buy an old boat – at least with that we’d have somewhere to holiday, given all the uncertainty about whether hotels or holiday homes would be open. Early summer saw me stumble into the possession of a charming and characterful old ketch. Long gone were the racing days of my youth. I was now embracing the slow and steady, seeking a safe and comfortable platform to bring my four kids to sea, down canals and into lakes.
The older kids were incredibly excited to find our family suddenly having a little floating homestead. They enthusiastically set about learning their knots and how the sails can harness the wind to move us along. In my younger days, I worked as a skipper, sailing tourists along the Irish coast. Now I’d be revisiting some old haunts, but seeing them from a new perspective as a father, with my own kids as crew. Now there would be no deadlines to meet and we could travel at our own pace. Instead of rushing from one harbour to the next, we could stop in each one for days or even a week or two, to absorb each place.
For the first week that I had the boat, it was tied up to a pontoon in a harbour near our home as I provisioned her and went through every crevice, getting to know her innards and checking every system. I spent nights aboard with the kids, to settle in and to find out that we had everything we’d need.
The day came when it was time to take her west. For the sailors of Cork, west is where we go, into one of the finest cruising grounds in the world which begins in earnest at Glandore from where the coastline breaks into hundreds of sublime islands, inlets, bays and beaches. Roaringwater Bay alone could keep a sailor happy for months. I let go of the ropes one fine morning with three children aboard, aged between 5 and 10, and my 71 year old father as crew. The boat came alive under our feet as we slowly navigated the harbour to sea. I hauled up the sails in the gentle breeze and we were powered by nature.
I had one guiding principle in returning to the sea: I would not scare the kids, nor put anyone off by making them seasick, fearful or cold. With this in mind we pulled into a sandy bay as soon as the swell made itself known, and anchored for the night. We swam off the back and my wife and our toddler came aboard for dinner. The older kids stayed on deck deep into the warm dusk, until the stars appeared above the lighthouse. We slept, alone in the bay, cosy in our little home, dreaming of the adventures ahead of us.