Kilmore Quay 21 May 2023

 

Grey Mullet swimming under Lazaway in Kilmore Quay harbour 

Today has been a day of exercise, relaxing and maintenance.  We have stayed at Kilmore Quay in calm sunny weather, very warm - summery and holidayish.  

Our exercise was a walk through the dunes to the west of the town - the Ballyteige Burrow Nature Reserve.  It is a very large area of dunes with a good path along its landward side, brilliant for flowers, and a little disappointing for birds (skylark, reed bunting, stonechat, linnet, meadow pipit were present but not in good numbers).  We crossed to the seaward side and walked back along the beach (which stretches for 16km in total).  



The beach was fabulous to look at, huge and extensive. Looks pristine 


until you look a bit more closely.  The amount of plastic waste along the tide line is really quite shocking - a lot of large bits of waste, and huge numbers of small bits.


In amongst this is natural debris - much more interesting 

Cuttlefish bone, spider crab shell, coconut, harbour porpoise corpse 

Interestingly there were three harbour porpoise corpses, all in much the same state of decomposition, so presumably they died at the same time.


Our walking route - just over 10km in total:

Relaxation came in the form of coffee and cake in Cocoa’s cafe - extremely good, followed by chilling on the flybridge or a siesta down below.

Maintenance involved checking the port engine following an inverter related trip of the alternator - all good.  Plus cleaning the engine water cooling strainers - they were disgusting, and in real need of a clean (we suspect Arklow of being part of the problem).  We also topped up the gearbox oil which we think was a little low. A busy day at the office!

Walking the Ballyteige Burrows

It’s a tough life

The way to identify a dead cetacean is from its teeth.

Today’s Kilmore Quay bird list has 37 species.

Eating on board this evening, and then an early start tomorrow.


















































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