Isle of Man
After a late night loading the recently renovate sail boat ‘Koala’, we left Killyleagh during the early hours. Of course, this didn’t go without some interesting issues to wake us up for the morning (starting as we mean to go on!): the steering wheel would catch/jam whilst we tried to steer to the right, which is always a bit of an issue when you are going down a narrow mouth with notorious whirlpools the whole way along. Nevertheless, we made it out and began our crossing of the Irish Sea to the little Island stuck in the middle. It was everyone’s first ‘proper’ sailing experience (except for the captain, thankfully!) and sea sickness quickly kicked in – a sensation not helped by the noisy engine that was propelling us for this six-hour crossing. We all took our turns at the wheel keeping a course of 120* - 130* and with dolphins keeping us entertained we arrived at Port Saint Mary happy and ready to chill out on the deck enjoying in the sun. Coincidentally, Kevin suddenly appeared after hiding from the tasks on board for the entire journey.
After an hour of enjoying the sun and relaxing after our journey, we started with the ‘restorations’ so that we could hopefully sail our way back. This involved putting a restored winch on the mast, then putting all the tracers up, with Andrew (the lightest of the bunch) getting to enjoy the view from the top of the mast, which was also strengthened in its place by wedging some wood earlier in the day. Of course, by the time all the hardship was over it was time for an amazing meal made by the captain, and after Kevin finished his washing up duty (as he wasn’t much use when sailing) it was time for the pub.
The next morning, we started early enough with another glorious day. While some would rather skip the Frosties breakfast due to their sickness the day before, everyone was cheery and ready for what we had come for… A day of climbing. Though of course this wasn’t to begin until after some more relaxing, with excuses like “we were waiting for the sun to be lower in the sky”.
After walking for an hour (which felt like many more in the heat), we arrived at our first stop. In the Isle of Man climbing isn’t very developed, so guide books are most often print outs that are found online and the routes aren’t often climbed – which can give for some interesting adventures. The first place we went to involved a fun scramble down to a platform just above sea level where we split into two groups, myself and Kevin then Sinead and Andrew with Trevor taking photos and joining the others. Kevin climbed an amazing Sever, which started with a cool traverse, continuing up a corner with some blocky strange moves then finishing with a little overhang. Unfortunately, due to my nerves with sea cliffs I didn’t come to lead this which I really regret now! So, then we moved onto the next area which was further up the hill, where big slabs of rock are disappearing and cracking from the land leaving crack lines in the ground, and massive blocks just standing on the hillside. It was one of these we went to next. Here I climbed what was marked in the ‘guide book’ as a Moderate, but was definitely the most interesting ‘Moderate’ I have climbed with little, not very good gear and all the holds being quite sloped. Nevertheless, climbing is always a good adventure! The three others went off to do a short multipitch chimney. After this, we all met up to have a quick lunch and a little scramble to the next and last climb of the day... which Trevor lead up and we all quickly followed after seeing what an amazing climb it looked like! By the time we had all seconded this, the sun was going down and it was time to head back to the boat for another amazing meal and trip to the pub. Luckily for us we had been invited to a BBQ being held by the local sailing club by some competitors of a sailing race who had docked beside us. With much thanks to the sailing club where we were treated like competitors ourselves, and despite our best efforts at attempting to pay for the food, we were told to just help ourselves and enjoy a second delicious meal during our adventure.
With another early morning, it was time to do the last little jobs on the boat, relax (as if we hadn’t the entire time!) and start heading back to Killyleagh. This time, we managed to do do the journey with two hours of sailing, which was a nice change, and we could finally call it the ‘wind powered mission’ we were hoping for. We also had the luck of having Kevin joining us on deck for most the trip! And with another near disaster in the Lough nearly hitting the ferry, we ended the trip as we started.
