My plan to stay on day to recover on this beautiful island had to be shifted to the next day and the next, hopefully also beautiful island as I guessed Thursday as the better day to rest with a lot of rain and stronger wind in the afternoon, though southerlies. My whole body simply needed recovery from pushing on hard. Not enough sleep (I need 9 hrs!), a light cold with sniffy nose (from the wet paddling days), painful middle finger joint (on cold days extremely bad, on a warm day like yesterday not too bad) and elbows (I can mostly paddle around the pain). Not to talk about three infectious blisters on also my right hand. But it could be worse!
One day of sleeping long and not doing much will get me fit again. I am already today looking forward to the cozy long morning hours in the warm sleeping bag, the rain pouring on my tent walls, and turning around again instead of getting (mostly) up at 4 am in foggy drizzling wet conditions! Life can have so simple wishes!
I enjoyed the paddle in the northern archipelago end around Slyne Head, and went mostly as inside as possible. A small detour on the map instead of going straight offshore is sometimes more pleasant and sheltered and faster, especially when a fresh westerly wind pushes on the coast. Gone around the next head, I thought now I will go straight on the Clare Island, but the wisdom I just wrote was also going for the wide sound here between Inishbofin, Inishturk and Clare Island. The tide was actually supposed to run up, means north going the afternoon, but on my direct line it was rather felt the other way round, like and endless wide low tidal race, going two steps ahead and one beyond with pushing westerly winds now around 15 knots. I pulled closer to the mainland, the waves became lower and paddling easier. Again, a detour here in these conditions makes life much easier!
Regarding my fix plan to stay in tomorrow, I left the beautiful sandy beaches aside, the last long one had due the westerly wind and running up tide too much surf to land comfortably anyway. So I crossed over to Clare Island, the now strong westerly pushing me sideways into Clew Bay at the end of the day, but to land precisely after a straight track line in a beautiful sheltered natural village harbor. Two large ferries and about ten fish trawler plus many smaller boats were moored here, a lovely small sandy beach was inviting for me to land and camp. No ugly harbor wall here to my back like in Kilkee, just some dunes. The whole village looked friendly, and I am looking forward to a walk tomorrow – after I probably slept until lunch time!