To the mountains of Mourne and back.

A Mersey ferry overtakes us on our way to the channel.

Over the last few years I’ve been sailing my Robber 3e on the river Mersey and the Irish sea. She’s a small IOR boat and measures in at just over 24ft in length. Well this year we went on manovours and set off for a lap of the Irish sea. On board were my friends Ray and Brian, a lot of fuel, plenty of grub and beer. We left Liverpool on mid Thursday afternoon and set sail for Douglas, IOM. It was to be quite a long crossing, 70Nm at night in a small boat is quite an adventure.

After locking out of Liverpool marina we set sail down the Mersey and before long were passing New Brighton with its perched Rock fort and accompanying light house. With Perch Rock on the stern we were soon pushing our way up the Queens channel past the well known Crosby beach, the iron men and onward towards Burbo Towers and a course to the IOM. The going was slow with the wind on the nose and a good swell in the channel, we tacked most of the way until the channel swung west and then once past Q2 it was time to swing the compass northerly. There was no turning back, the tide was on its way out and off we went off in search of the distant horizon.

It was great to be heading out towards the gas fields, over the last year with time spent working etc, Peterman had spent a lot of time tied up in the mariner and thats not what boats are for. Id even started to think I was becoming a “flat-earther”, thats the name Brian gives to the sort of individual that clings to the land, who never ventures too far and runs for home at the slightest puff of wind. Well I certainly don’t want to be know as a flat-earther so off we went chasing the horizon, although its very strange, no matter how fast and far you sail you never seem catch it.

It was great to be out on the sea, away from the noise and triviality of city life and sailing along whilst watching the sun go down. Peterman was sailing well and we were on our way. However soon the wind died and it was on with the engine. We motored on for a good few hours passing the brightly lit gas platforms until eventually in the morning light the outline of the IOM could be seen on the horizon. We ended up spending all night out on deck, a problem with the fuel tank breather had rendered the cabin uninhabitable, that was until we had burnt off enough fuel to drop the level in the tank. I must remember to fix this problem before the next trip. After what seemed like a long night we pulled into Douglas harbour, it was 8am in the morning, just in time to get the kettle on for a nice cuppa and some breakfast.

The plan was to have something to eat, get cleaned up and get our head down for a few hours, however you know what happens to most good intentions. After a well deserved cupa, a shower and some grub, it was off into Douglas for a couple of jars so to speak, a great end to the first leg of our journey.