History Detectives

Another reason for staying at Newry is of course the hunt for family history, Lynnes family history to be precise. Not too far away is the village of Hilltown which nestles in the shadow of the Mountains of Mourne. It is the nearest village to the townland of Clonduff, or is it parish of Clonduff? I must admit I am not yet completely comfortable with the different land divisions and I sometimes find its all very confusing. However as the day was so nice and Walter offered to run us out, we jumped at  the opportunity of a visit starting with the local Catholic church.

 

Luckily Walter is very nearly a local despite originally coming from Fleetwood, and knew the church so we went straight there, the view above is of Hilltown from the church steps.

  

The church is The Church of St John the Evangelist, in the parish of Clonduff in the townland of Ballymaghery. Founded in 1850.

 

It is rather lovely inside and has many beautiful stained glass windows.

 

 

We tried to speak to the priest but he was obviously not at home so we scoured the graveyard for evidence of the McConville family. There they were, but all fairly recent graves, however at least it proved that we were probably in the right place. There were probably only a couple of dozen surnames in the whole graveyard.

 

 

as we walked back with Walter we noticed that the priest had returned so we went over to introduce ourselves and Lynne soon got to grips with the arcane script of the parish records, unfortunately with little success.

 

However Father was quite happy for us to return if we could get any more information, it is not inconceivable that there is an error in our information and more detective work is needed. For example we are unsure whether one date we have is for a baptism or a birth?

 

Grand day out for all that! Once again thank you to Walter for his generous help.

 

What If?

In light of developing plans for next year I thought it was time to revise Dark Tarns safety equipment list. Up to now we have been largely coastal cruising and have put off the purchase of a life raft until we decided to go deep sea. the same applies to that most useful item of safety equipment the EPIRB
(Emergency position indicating radio beacon). as these items are a/quite expensive and b/ have a limited life between services, normally three years or so it seemed sensible to wait until just before we depart on a long trip before purchasing.
After a bit of scouring on the internet and a few e-mails to local suppliers we were offered a chance to go to a local life raft service centre for a chat and the chance to actually see a few rafts unpacked, not something we ever hope to do in real life!
Luckily the day broke fine and after a quick phone call to establish a convenient time even more luckily we had a visit from Walter Scott of the Red Star Boat Club who kindly offered to run us to the location. The alternative would have been to walk quite a long way or take the dingy about 300 metres down the canal. Told you it was local...........

 

Paul and Joe turned out to be a mine of information, and soon began to show us the ins and outs of life rafts, of course this meant Lynne getting in and out of a few...

 

 The workspace was spotless, always a good sign.

We were particularly taken by the difference between the commercial rafts,( RFD) and the usual Yottie rafts.

This particular one had been bought for £250 off Fleabay, and the owner was moaning because the service was going to cost another £300, moral don't buy rafts off E-Bay as you can probably buy a new one for not a lot more once its been properly serviced, of course that assumes there is NOTHING wrong with it, and we all know what assumptions are mothers of don't we? In actual fact this was a good one, however close examination revealed that the materials used in its construction were not in the same league as the commercial rafts and the canopy was unlined for example so it would have been a lot colder to sit in for any length of time. Its resistance to abrasion and punctures was also a bit of a lottery, Joe told us it would likely split were as the RFD would just hole and be readily repairable. Small things but worth a bit of thought now so we don't worry later.
We discussed the various equipment levels for ISAF ISO and SOLAS certification and Joe kindly showed us some of the stuff packed in a SOLAS A liferaft.

this includes pouches or sachets of fresh water, the large orange bag above is packed with about 5 litres per person, emergency food, the last time I tasted this on a course it was truly awful, this time however it was fairly palatable (tasted a bit like muesli bar) there are also repair kits, a CAT C first aid kit, pump paddles flares etc.

It certainly gave us a lot to think about, and thanks to Keith from KTS safety at Kilkeel, Paul and Joe at Newry, for giving us their time and the benefit of their experience. Also a big cheers to Walter for the lift, and the bottle of wine, a very nice man (from Fleetwood, so a fellow countryman)

 

 

Onion skins

It's funny, if you stay in a place for a week or two, then the onion skin effect begins........

So just when you thought you knew your way around, a humongous Tesco turns up, just 200 metres from the city centre.

 You find a pub that has an open mike night and suddenly you realise where all the young people are hanging.........

You go to a chamber orchestra concert, little realising that Newry had been invaded by Bulgaria, world music , gypsy dances, Ulean pipes, Indian folk music, opera, a beautiful and fascinating mix of harmonies and rhythm.

So to the pub and guess what? It continues, we are really enjoying our stay in Newry, we are getting to know our neighbours and the ladies at the information office at Bagenals Castle are very helpfu. Bagenals Castle is also the local museum and a very fine one. It perfectly demonstrates the onion skin principle in that it is one of the oldest buildings in Newry but has been added to and built around so that it is necessaryto peel way some of its skin to see the history underneath. The museum facilitates this in a number of ways one of which is the glass floor showing the cellars ( or dungeons maybe?)

 Also in a vey hands on sort of a way it allows and encourages you to interact with the exhibits, this also gives Lynne an excuse for " dressing up "

The canal basin where we are moored also has a lot of history attached, this would have been the view from around  the 1800s

Dark Tarn is moored just behind where the steam vessel on the right is in the photograph, the view in the background is largely unchanged except for a few mobile phone masts and the floodlights for the local Gaelic football ground.

A similar view from 1963 or thereabouts, the foremost vessel is from Denmark and is unloading timber

This is an intriguing image I unearthed, it is definitely the Ship Canal and is noted as being the Quays however I suspect it is more towards the town centre, what is now known as the Butter Crane Quay and Sugar Island.

Judging by the cars this must date from the 1930s or 1940s

More detective work needed............

Settling......

The weather took a turn for the better and this allowed us to explore a little further afield. We took a bus to Warrenpoint to have a look around. We had passed the small town and harbour in the rain a week ago. One of the boats on the council pontoons was Zig Zag which is owned by a leading light in the local unconventional yacht club. The red star boat club, it has no constitution and no annual fees needless to say we have applied for membership!

Looking down Carlingford Lough from Warrenpoint, the Haulbowline lighthouse is just visible on the horizon.

We also had a wee walk up the continuation of the canal, the towpath goes all the way to Portadown and allegedly is second only to the Giants Causeway in terms of visitor numbers, of course we are in Ireland! We walked a couple of miles and came across the local restoration society hard at work restoring the surroundings to the second lock.

The canal is quite scenic and unlike towpaths in England this appears to be a small road and is metalled hence there are a large number of bikes use it ( maybe the visitor numbers are correct )

It would be lovely to see the canal restored along its full length, as you can see past the second lock it becomes very congested and weedy. However the canal exists along its entire length thanks to volunteers campaigning to preserve it so hopes are high.

When we returned to Dark Tarn we discovered another visitor tied up alongside Soteria and Badger.

It was the ex herring drifter 'Silvery Light' built in 1885 in St Ives, in Cornwall.

Our cozy home is fast becoming a Maritime Museum! Fascinating......

We are slowly taking advantage of the nice weather to snug Dark Tarn down for the winter, we have bought a de-humidifier to combat the inevitable damp and condensation and we rinsed the salt out of the Genoa and let it dry in the sun, hopefully we should be able to make enough room on the boat to store the sails over winter.

Of course , it being Sunday we didn't want to work too hard! So I for one thought I'd sit in the sun in the cockpit and catch up on my blog. Lynne was reading a yachting magazine, hopefully she will get some good ideas for where to head for next year!

Settling in at Newry

After the first storm, apart from a floating platform left over from a triathlon recently floating off down the dock, everything survived without damage. Allandale, our trusty tender was however full of rainwater so Lynne very kindly volunteered to bail her out as my arm is still suffering a little tennis elbow (my excuse!)

We decided that we would devote the next week to exploring our new home, first jobs were to register with a doctor and join the library. The doctors turned out to all live in a small encampment with the rather grand title of ' Health Village' it actually looked a little like an Eastern European prison camp! However the staff were very helpful as usual and I was registered without fuss.

 The library deserves a mention as it really is splendid. I joined initially for the usual reasons, namely Internet access and the ability to print from a PC. However Lynne spent hours on the top floor ( the library is a three story building) this has a huge reference section on local history including OS maps from the 19th century, I am sure we will be spending some time there, apparently there is also a member of staff with particular expertise on matters of family history.

We also took the oppertunity to introduce ourselves to the neighbours, on the end is the Christian sail traing schooner 'Soteria' and her skipper Chris, owner Vicky, first and second mates Paula and Derek.

We are trying to figure a subtle way of discovering whether they have a washing machine on board, or even a Victorian mangle, they certainly wash a lot! The boat next to her is Badger, but not the one we know. She appears to be a little steam tug.

The next boat along is a narrow boat 'Goldfinch' owned I believe by a Londoner, she was shipped over to Warrenpoint and brought up the river and canal, so she has travelled 5 miles in Ireland! Apparently she is actually a cafe, and we are promised a hog roast when she opens, can't wait!

We are also on chatting terms with several of the sailing boats moored along the quay but not unfortunately our immediate neighbour, a yellow Van de Stadt, Cuileann.

I am sure we wil meet the owner soon, the old gent who owns the 'She 27' She Dhu was a mine of information about local facilities. This Sparkman and Stevens boat is also very easy on the eye.

The Quay has quite a history being on the first summit level canal ever dug in the UK, it is a ship canal and used to go all the way through to Lough Neagh, actually it still does but isn't navigable due to the locks being in disrepair. There is a canal side walk that goes to Portadown which is about 20 miles away, Lynne and I are planning to walk it and catch the bus back. The canal goes right through Newry City centre and the redeveloped sections are quite attractive with a lot of public art some of which reflects the commercial history of the area. This particular one stands a little further down the quay and is entitled " The Docker".

So here we are, we have discovered that the transport links are excellent, the shops are great, we literally want for nothing, within a stones throw of the boat is a shopping centre with a large Sainsburys, fast food outlets ( yummy) and even a cinema, unfortunately it is one of the few which doesn't do 'Orange Wednesday', can't have everything! 

I also bought one of these little things, The EE sim in my iPad has a 4G signal on the boat, unfortunately it costs me £20 for a measly 4GB of data, but now for the same money I have 15 GB and this little marvel makes the whole boat a wi-fi hotspot, so I can now have my laptop, iPad phone all sharing the same Internet connection, it also fits in my pocket so I can carry my internet bubble around with me! Brilliant!

We still have lots to explore, we have bought a few maps to get oriented and are looking forward to the winter. We hope that the shelter afforded by the surrounding mountains will give us a mild season. Tonight there was a lovely pink glow over the city as the sun went down.

Time to get the charts and pilots out and do some planning for next years adventures, in the meantime we have a beautiful corner of county Down to explore and Lynne is looking forward to the hunt for her ancestors.

Testing ....testing......

One of the main reasons for wintering in the sea canal at Newry was the very good protection from winter gales that this would afford. Little did we realise how soon that theory would be put to the test. The wind steadily increased all day and by late afternoon the rain had set in as the warm sector approached, we settled down in the snug cabin to watch Downton Abbey and polish off the last of the spicy rum as the wind instruments on board Dark Tarn were showing gusts of 50 knots. I doubled up on the stern lines and we settled down for a very noisy night! However as awful as the weather was we were in no danger, we were getting moved around in the gusts and the wind was howling in the rigging  but apart from the noise keeping us awake, everything was good.

At 1 am the wind was slightly less however was still a good force 9 on the Annemometer.

The barometer was still falling as we were on the leading edge of the depression hence the southerly winds and looking at a synoptic revealed another depression lurking to the NW. The Synoptics would suggest that the low pressure systems are 'blocked ' by the jet stream and will hang about for the rest of the week, so more wind for us, can't really complain, it is autumn after all!

On the whole I was glad we were not at sea, and Newry seems to be a very safe haven.

P.s. Just discovered how to post video on here so check out 'towards Carlingford'

Carlingford

We berthed at Carligford Marina adjacent to a rather novel feature, not to mention interesting wayeto exit the pontoon, via ladders and a bridge crossing the deck. It is the ferrocement Ocean going tug 'cretegaff' it's a hulk however still floats and as the tide rises the large anchor chains clank a lot!

As clearance for the Newy canal was going to take 48hrs we ad time to explore the village of Carlingford. However as we again needed internet access ( because we were now in the Irish Republic only Lynnes phone was working correctly ) anyway good excuse for breakfast in the marina cafe.

The views of the mountains of Mourne sweeping down to the Lough were spectacular.

The Ulster fry was also very good!

Carlingford is a quaint sort of a place with three castles, the town streets still follow the medieval pattern and the remains of the old walls can still be seen.

The Navtex was telling a story of gale force winds in the Irish Sea up to force 9 in places, we had a bit of a wild night with heavy rain but we got quite a bit of shelter in the marina. Our plan was to go up the Lough to Warrenpoint then continue up the river a couple of miles to the sea lock giving entrance to the Newry canal. We were thinking that  Newry  would be a good place to spend the winter giving almost perfect shelter from the weather. Coincidentally Lynne recently discovered that her great great grandparents were from Clonduff which is about 5 miles from Newry. So it would seem some genealogical research could be undertaken, at the very least it would be interesting to spend some time in the area.

The following day brought more rain and the visibility was very poor. However we had arranged to met Kieran the lock keeper at 6.30pm so we left the Marina at 5 o'clock and headed up the lough. Beyond Warrenpoint the river became quite scenic and we also passed over the border again into Northern Ireland. As we followed the buoyage we turned the chart plotter off as not for the first time we had gone off the charts.

The sea lock is massive and obviously built for much larger ships than little Dark Tarn. The lock filled and lifted us about 3 metres up to the level of the canal.

We continued up the canal as darkness fell and the rain continued to fall relentlessly. We had to mess about a bit at Albert Basin as most of the boats were rafted up two deep, we found a suitable spot and moored up securely. We decided we had earned a drink so wandered into town to find a pub. In a familiar pattern now for Northern Ireland we were immediately made to feel very welcome and in fact we're not allowed to leave, having at least three rounds placed in front of us bought by the owner and customers who were playing poker. It felt like a good place to stay.

In the morning the sun returned, and although the quay is at the side of a busy shopping centre the view out of the companionway was very pleasant. The mountains in the distance are part of the Cooley range.

We took the oppertunity to dry our wet weather gear and Kieran turned up and gave us a lift to the tourist information centre to pay our dues for six months stay. He also drove us out of town to a caravan shop to find a splitter and extension cable so we could plug into the electricity supply on the quay. Transport links are good from Newry to either Belfast or Dublin so we should find it easy to return to England for visits and of course for Christmas!

Towards Carlingford

The morning broke grey and cloudy but the wind overnight had dropped, we were in Audley Roads just opposite Audley Castle. We had planned very loosely to walk around the bay and get some fresh milk but looking at the conditions and more importantly the clock on the bulkhead adjacent to the aft cabin, (we keep one on local and one on UT time) it suddenly dawned on me that this could be the best time to leave. Most forecasts were giving more wind later in the week, if we left now and took the last of the ebb we would hit a wind over tide situation at the entrance to the channel, that meant over falls, however they would only get bigger with more wind. An alternative would be to leave later but then it would mean after six hours of flood (wind with tide) the over falls would be minimal but it would be a night entry anywhere. Tricky, as the hour hand closed on 10.30 I decided to go.

We started the engine and motored out into the last of the ebb tide, very quickly we were doing 7-8 knots towards the Seagen tidal generator.

As we approached the entrance channel it was obvious that the over falls in the main channel were pretty substantial. I decided to try the smaller but less boisterous west channel, this would mean a bit of high speed rock dodging but as it turned out was pretty straightforward, however even the smaller over falls evident were decidedly uncomfortable especially for Lynne who really doesn't like being thrown around so much!

Very soon we were able to raise sail and within a short time we were a tad overpowered in the gusts so Lynne and I put a couple of rolls in the Genoa, we continued to tramp along at over 6.5 knots and unusually for us in the right direction!

We quickly brought up Ardglass and a decision to continue to Carlingford was made after listening to our first Irish area forcast on the VHF. It suggested that the weather was going to deteriorate in the next few days.

Lynne as usual did a sterling job of providing hot "brews" and after a couple of hours of trimming and tweaking the course we passed the lighthouse on St Johns point and entered Dundrum Bay. The mountains of Mourne came into full view.

I managed to get a couple of minutes of video on Lynnes iPhone, if I can figure out how to do it I will post it here.

Around the middle of the afternoon the wind strength dropped from the top of a 4 to a 3 and we shook out the couple of reefs in the Genoa.

As we approached the bay we came across two cardinals and a new wreck buoy, we made a note on the chart and sped on towards the south cardinal marking the entrance approach to Carlingford Lough. There was a large ferry approaching the channel but as usual the AIS kept us well informed as to any potential collision. We dropped the sails at the cardinal as wind was now coming directly ahead from the Lough. We followed the large ferry in as a pilot boat left to rendezvous with another large merchant vessel following us in.

The convoluted channel led us after an hour and a half to the number 18 port hand channel marker where we had to leave the channel to approach Carlingford Marina. Paddy the Marina manager was pacing the pontoons obviously having seen us approaching, this is quite easy as we had to effectively overshoot the entrance to the marina by about half a mile and the return on a bearing to avoid a large drying bank. We quickly moored up at a vacant pontoon.

It was quite late and as the last rays of the sun lit up the mountains of Mourne on the opposite side of the lough we quickly tidied up Dark Tarn and headed off into the small village of Carlingford, about a 15 min walk away. We got some Euros from the cash machine ( we were in the Repuplic of Ireland now )

And bought some seriously good fish and chips and eat them at the harbour. It seemed appropriate to then get a beer, which we did in the oldest pub in Carlingford.

A spectacularly bad "selfie"