July 14th, Day 30. Made it around Mizen head! What a fantastic day! When I say “made it” there was very little environmental challenge, but the physicality of a 16 mile crossing was there alright. Charlie Daly joined me for today, like we planned weeks before so it was nice to finally meet him. He came to Barley cove and we got his boat and head down with mine before taking off. I took a lovely little shallow spill trying to get in my boat as were launching and realized this is only the second time I’ve launched with someone in 30 days, so I’m not used to chatting while timing breaking waves (not your fault Charlie). I had a good laugh.
Made our way towards Mizen and it was just so beautiful going around the head, so flat calm even though we left in the last hour and a half of the tide against us. The wind was to pick up later so we wanted to get a head start. After around the head we started to shoot straight across towards Castletownbere and I’m so grateful that Charlie was there because once he split off to paddle up Bantry bay towards home, it was so much more boring. So we had a lovely time, chatting and admiring how flat and glassy it was. The hills around us were giving off this beautiful light blue hue, it reminded me of the mountains in Washington. Tons of sea birds everywhere too and they were flying so low and close to us, I love watching birds come and look at me. Just a stunning day. I then made it across to just left of my original spot because I saw a tiny beach where I would finally pee and then upon Charlie’s encouragement, another 5 miles towards Dursey.
How I managed not peeing was that I set an alarm for 2 hours before I would actually wake up, and chugged some water then so that I would have some hydration at the start of the day. Worked great, left the beach “empty” and with my small half litre Nalgene full of water and an electrolyte tab. No complaints really.
I’m chuffed with the day, we really got blessed with the weather and sea, Mizen is notorious for big conditions as it’s the first finger peninsula of the South. So the fact that we got great weather and I did a 16 mile crossing and then went a 5 miles further without feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I’m just delighted. A great milestone!
