Monday, 18.07.2016
Day 16
52,6 km
5.45 to 17.30 h
N 53.06604 W 09.51266
Inisheer, Aran Islands
The forecast was very calm wind, not over 10 knots. And sun! But when I woke as usual at 4 am, it was so foggy I could not see the water on high tide. I decided to have one hour more sleep, as it was not so quiet on my hobo city beach camp as expected. A group of kids enjoyed spitting on my tent from the top of the concrete beach wall going all around the whole sandy bay and animated themselves to pee and to shit on it, when the latter obviously did not work out, they rather threw some stones. Some lady tried to animate them “to leave the poor woman alone”, but the rain of spit and stones continued. I did not react, just guessed my part about the Irish youth and education success…Later it was some crazy drunk throwing his bottle near my tent. Next time I take some flares along! Can’t remember I had such kind of rain anywhere else on my trips? Yes, I had a dog “watering” my tent one night…

When I launched, it was still so dense fog I could not see nothing closer than a few meters. I simply followed my GPS track out of the bay, and then listened to breakers and estimated my necessary distance to the cliffs. Not sure if I’d like to be on the water in such conditions without GPS? But the sea was much lower, and the fog eventually started to lift slowly around 8.30 am. Some sailing boat coming out of Doughmore Bay came close by me, obviously surprised to find me out here! When seas and wind are so low, I paddle also slow, being a bit bored, especially when not seeing much.

But I hand railed myself into one of the most stunning coves with two huge cave entrances on this trip! On the south shire of Ballard Bay, in this small 90 degrees bay, you can find her…walls vertical 100 m high to the sky, about 50 meters diameter is the cove. I dared to paddle a bit into the left cave, but got surprised about some swell coming behind me carrying me close to the rocky cave beach and seeing me hectically paddling backwards. But all good…it was wide enough in here.

The highlight of the day, the Cliffs of Moher, presented themselves as a reward for the “lost” Loop Head cliffs on (almost) perfect weather. The swell should have been just a tad bit lower, and I’d have dared to paddle through the beautiful huge arch at the entrance of the cliffs at Hag’s Head. But oh well, you can’t have it all! The cliffs are absolute stunning from the bottom, about 100 m high (?), just you and your kayak and thousands of birds floating on the water, living in the cliff walls like in perfect bird apartments and walking on top of the cliffs. The latter some very colorful birds, not able to fly…

Not sure what were more here today on this perfect weather holiday – humans marching in long lines on the cliff tops or birds? When I looked up to the thousands of people on the cliff tops and on the ships, I felt really being special and rather huge than as tiny as one of those amongst many! This is why I like not to be an infantrist but rather a naval captain of my own privilege! Other shitloads of tourists played at least marine infantry and boarded the many sightseeing boats coming in ten minutes’ intervals from the harbor to the north, made halt for a few minutes in well distance of the cliffs to take pictures, and turned back to load the next batch. Thank goodness they are obviously obliged to stay in a reasonable distance, so I had the cliff foot just for myself!

To finish the day, I was aiming for a small remote beach near the airport of Inisheen island. Thank goodness it was high tide, on low tide it is fringed with rocks and rather hard to access. No way I was keen to land on the next populated beach…I had a private dip to clean my today rather hot body in the dry suit, but better warm than wet and cold. I have a light cold, with sore throat, close to throwing up many times probably from taking too many Ibuprofen (stops tomorrow…) and overall weakness…no the perfect health on this trip! Elbows are ok on paddling, but my right middle finger is so painful on paddling I mostly use a weak four finger grip only. So my pace was not very fast today…but who cares!