Saturday, 16.07.2016
Day 14
40,3 km
5.00 to 13.40 h
N 52.32687 W 10.01975
Magharee Islands

I got up early to have the choice – a short day of 40 km to the Magharee Isands or a long day of 67 km over to Loop Head, in between is no campsite – see how it goes!
It started like I landed – rainy, gray and foggy all morning, minus wind. On breaking camp also thank goodness to the dry suit. I had to overcome a small dumper full of sea weed, by no way I’d like to have the cockpit full of water! Shoveling in and jumping on was no problem, but caught still a bowl full of sea salad to pick out manually from my cockpit. Nut sure if my electrical pump likes to suck and spit this out?

I almost ran over a seal between the rocks of Sybil Point, he was so sleepy I first very scary mistook him for a suddenly appearing rock on the lowering swell, then I thought he must be noticing me, and will slap my face full of water by diving down? But he just sank down with my kayak almost on his humpback. Full in trance!
Yesterday I was not sure if it was good to stay in on those gusty wind forecast on the edge -when I saw the long, steep massive cliff walls today around Brandon Head, I guess I did right! The gust coming down there can’t have been pleasant! Today was calm, just the swell around 2 m. At the main Head, the fog lifted a bit to show me the gigantic rock scenery, and also tempted me to look behind an inviting sideways leaning huge tunnel, but no way to go through…too much swell.

Just besides that tunnel, a larger fishing was watching my moves, probably eventually relieved to see me turning away from the threatening tunnel wall. Sees were just a bit reflecting here, but basically calm that I could pull up for a chat, but not calm enough to receive a bar the fishermen offered me! At least today they did not offer to recue me, as I obviously had all my senses together…
And I spotted my first shark fin of the trip! Slowly raising and sinking down again was some typical triangle fin, without the gentle movements of dolphins or whales. But he was not interested in me at all, different to Australia where the sharks in the northern end daily bumped into my stern a couple of times to see if I was something to eat…?

Paddling was slow today, the constant reflecting waves and the fog all morning brought me to the edge of seasickness, and I early decided this won’t be Loop Head today, but Margaree Islands. For paddling happily over 60 km, I’d need a following wind ride like yesterday! I turned around the flat island with the only house of the small archipelago to the left side, being washed over shallow reefs with just enough water. The island I am camped on has some old monk house site, igloo-like round houses piled up with lose rocks and no “glue” at all. How could anyone live here? The only house also had many ruins around, and I was not sure if it was inhabited at all. But at least this weekend I saw a few people.

A guy with a girl on a jet ski lettering “rescue”, but rather on a couple’s weekend pleasure trip than on duty, also arrived at my beach for a stopover. I had to smile to myself as the guy could barely walk being an over-pumped up body builder stretching and almost bursting his black wetsuit over the max, some round cheeks squeezed out of the full-head hood. He reminded me a bit to the fat seal this morning…