Lazaway Life

  Leaving Church Bay on Rathlin in the dark. After our short but extremely enjoyable trip to Glenarm and Rathlin, it was time to head home. Around Rathlin and Fair Head, and indeed the whole north Irish Sea, the tide is the master.  We had to leave at 06.00, half an hour before dawn, in order to catch the tide south. Another view of Rue Point, this time just before dawn, with the light flashing. The advantage of catching the tide is that it speeds you along the way.  With the engines operating at their usual 1800rpm we make about 8.5 to 9.0 knots - our normal cruising speed.  But we always try to catch a bit of tide to speed us along - normally 1 or 2 knots. The tides past Fair Head allow you to have fun. The top figure is our speed through the water - what we achieve using the engines. The bottom figure is our speed over the ground - the speed we are actually doing. The difference is the speed of the tide, 5.5 knots in this case.  This is a fantastic speed for us, and indeed at one po

  Part of painting, by James Coyle, of Rue beacon and light.  This is on display in a gallery up near the Catholic Church on the island. A very grey day on Rathlin today.  With a SE breeze, and quite cool.  So we had a gentle start to the day, after all we are not moving on today.  After breakfast, followed immediately by morning coffee, we went for a walk to the East Lighthouse. It’s not a long walk (about 3 miles the round trip) but it was a lovely walk.  It’s part of the island we are not very familiar with and so it was good to explore.  The narrow roads are easy walking and, surprisingly to us, the verges and open moorland are a riot of rich colour from the wild flowers - mainly very low-lying yellow gorse (just a few inches high) and purple heather.  But there are also a plethora of other flowers mixed in with blues, purples, yellows, orange and red. From top left, clockwise: scabious, knapweed, harebells, montbretia, gorse and heather. The East Lighthouse was good to see, though