Thursday 11 August. Ardglass to Peel . Isle of Man. 30 nm

First of all .. I forgot to add that we’ve passed the 2000 Nautical mile mark. ! So that picture will be included here..

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The morning started early.You know the nights are drawing in when it’s still pretty dark at 0500. This will be more obvious as we go further north too. Tides again dictating that we leave Ardglass at a time that allows us to get into Peel marina on the Isle of Man. Unfortunately as we slipped our lines and reversed, nothing happened. We were stuck on the bottom in the mud. It’s near spring tides, so there was nothing for it but to wait until the tide came in a bit. Waiting in the beautiful dawn, as the sky gradually lightened and the sun came up, was no hardship. We eventually started floating about 0545, so crept out carefully through the tiny channel with the port hand markers still sitting on the rocks and seaweed. There was no more than 2 knots of wind, so absolutely no point in hoisting any sails. In fact today was the first day in our whole journey I think, that we have had to motor for an entire journey. Identifying and watching Sea birds bobbing around on the oily water, provided the entertainment. Watching them paddling furiously as we approached, and then suddenly disappearing under the water at the last minute. We needed to get to Peel marina, by 1330 at the latest. There is a cill at the entrance which flaps down to allow boats in 2 hours either side of high water, and the swing bridge above opens every half hour during this time. We were about 8 miles away when we saw disturbed water ahead of us, very obvious as the rest was so smooth. I suddenly realised what it was….. hundreds of dolphins jumping and diving… making the water look as if it was boiling. There was obviously a shoal of fish and they were having a hunting frenzy?? As we approached I took some pretty amateur video on this little i phone, and got some good close ups as they rode along our bow, ducking and diving under the bow, then appearing again on the other side. Makes photography almost impossible as they’re so fast! You end up with a lot of water shots! Certain species of dolphin love doing this and others don’t . It was a particularly amazing sight, never having seen so many together or displaying this level of exuberant activity. We got to Peel harbour and along with several other boats, went into the inner marina. Very well organised, the HM stood on the bridge giving berthing instructions to each boat and so we arrived in beautiful Peel. The marina is in the old harbour, with the town on one side, and the Castle on the other. Stans plane goes tomorrow, so we spent the rest of the day doing a bit of exploring – had a famous Manx ice cream- walked around the castle and went out for a lovely meal at the Creek inn. Thank you Stan!

What I learned today……. the dolphins we saw were “Short-beaked common dolphins “ . Latin: Delphinus Delphis and in Manx; Lheimmeyder cadjin giare-ghobbagh.

Sue x

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