Commodore Cobh

A month since my last posting and less than a month to go. My own preparations are almost complete for my departure on 2 January 2010.

Skipper Stephen Hyde and crew made a great passage across the Atlantic on 'A Lady' they departed Grand Canaria on 22 ...

... the graveyard and sketched it while the sun went down. creepy? alex thought so, i wasn't as creeped out. for dinner that night we went to the grocery store and took advantage of the kitchen kinlay house had and made some sweet dinner...noodles and tofuuu. a nice relaxing day and getting some sketch on after a pretty unproductive dublin.

... went to a very good heritage centre about the town. Turns out Cobh has a very big port related history: 1) This was the last port the Titanic went to before attempting to cross the Atlantic; 2) The Lusitania (WW1) was torpedoed right outside the harbour, and 3) Most of the immigrants who left Ireland (mostly during the Great Famine), left from Cobh (including the first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island). Consequently, the history was quite interesting.

I ...

Today when we woke up we were sailing into the port of Cobh, Ireland! We sailed by beautiful cliffs, castles and lighthouses as we approached the port. What a great day we had! We visited the gorgeous Blarney castle and, yes, we kissed the Blarney Stone. I had thought kissing the stone gave you good luck, but it turns out it ...

Started off the day with a nice breakfast overlooking Kinsale Harbor, then off to Charles Fort. Charles Fort was one of many Irish Forts guarding the harbor of the town. It was drizzling out a little, so umbrellas were in store, but the drizzle stopped about half-way through our tour of the Fort. The fort had beautiful views of both the town of Kinsale and into the open ocean.
We then went back into ...

Woke up this morning to pretty significant rainfall. Had a pleasant breakfast in the hotel and a bit of a conversation with the owners, since there were hardly any people in the dining room. We checked out and I loaded all of the luggage into the car. We also had to take care of a toll that our car went through in Dublin. When you go through a toll, you are given a number to call and you must provide credit card info in order to pay your toll. That took a ...

... top of the Blarney Castle and we kissed the Stone. On our way down I had enough time to explore the castle. Of course I had to crawl into the dungeon and the cave. Unfortunately I didn't bring a flashlight with me. What a pity. There's a nice park to stroll in, too. But we hadn't got time for that. Shortly after noon we drove back to Cobh. By the way, isn't the weather lovely ...

ork, the 2005 European capital of culture! Today we headed out to explore more of Cork, starting with a stop off at a cafe for a good breakfast. Cork is an awesome little town, I like it alot, an old sort of town with plenty of character, quite colourful buildings around the place, and a generally happy atmosphere. Lots of nice little restaurants and pubs ...

... to be harder to just rock up to the first B&B we came to and get a room. And this became pretty apparent come evening when we were looking for somewhere to stay around the outskirts of Cork, with a rowing regatta and a music festival adding to what would be a full Friday night anyway. With no vacancies anywhere we stopped, and the evening getting later and later, we decided to keep going a bit further on to Cobh and hopefully get something there. The ...