Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 19:51:15 +0100 From: Terry Waldron Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Subject: Trip Report - Ireland Part 1 [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Crew: Sue & Terry Waldron Boat: Dutch Barge Derrineel (privately owned and managed in the Ownerships scheme) Dates: 10 May 2001 to 19 May 2001 10 May 2001 Sue picked me up from work and we went straight to Plymouth airport, arrived in plenty of time to check in. Brenda and Dave, our friends who would be onboard with us, arrived a few minutes later. Decided to have a beer, £1.95 for a can of Boddingtons. Good flight from Plymouth to Bristol where we had to get off the plane and go through UK Customs. Back onto the same plane, a Brymon Dash 8. Off again and onwards to Dublin. A little bit of turbulence coming down to land. Found the Budget car hire desk and got our car. Drove to the Swords Travel Lodge. Rooms nice and we had a good deal at I£35 for each room. Went into Swords to eat, a number of pubs doing meals but settled on Havelock Hotel, tried the local beer, Smithwicks, very nice pint. Good meal, good service and well recommended. Back to Travel Lodge and to bed. 11 May Up fairly early but did not go to breakfast until 0830. After breakfast we set of for Ballinamore where we would pick up the Barge Derrineel. Travelled to Cavan where we did our shopping and then on to Ballinamore where we find our boat moored. Initial impressions are that the boat is very nice looking, 48 ft x 10ft 6" with an en suite bedroom with bath in the bow and another with a shower in the stern. The centre section being a raised wheelhouse over the engine compartment which also houses the two holding tanks and the ebberspacher. The other centre part of the boat is a lounge and galley combined that can sleep additional guests. (for pictures http://ownerships.co.uk/barges1.htm.) Riversdale Boats who look after Derrineel take you through the boat and explain the equipment and take you to the first lock and advise on how to use the locks. They are all panel operated and need a smart card to start the operation, cards cost I£5 and contain 10 units, a lock is 1 unit and this can also be used for pump out (10 units), showers etc along the way. We decided to go North aiming for Belturbet. The canal is canalised river and much like the Kennet part of the Kennet & Avon giving enough room for two wide beam boats to pass. The countryside is very rural and in places the canal has very sharp turns. After about an hour we come to the first lough the channel at its entrance being marked by posts with white and red markers, this lough looks about 2 miles long and at least a mile wide, there are a couple of islands, one with an old church on. We stayed to the channel marked on the map but it is evident with care and probably better charts ( if they exist) to go on the opposite side of the islands and to the Animal Farm which we can see has a pontoon mooring and a number of small yachts. Binoculars are needed to establish where the exit channel is, this is a narrow channel with a 90 degree turn into it. Soon we are into the next lough, which is very shallow and there is a narrow channel through it, easily seen by the markers, two more loughs, again both very shallow before we are on the canal again. Many herons seen and we have seen a few fishermen on the banks of the first lough. We decide to moor at the moorings at the end of the last lough as it is getting close to 2000 and the locks shut down power at that time. Coming in to moor there is an an english lady fishing, she is in the middle of the mooring and there is no room to moor either before her or after her, she did not seem to want to move, after 3 requests for her to move she got her husband to remove her keep net which had 57 nice roach in it. We moored and they packed up and left in their camper van. 12 May, 2001 Arose to a beautiful dawn chorus from the birds, sounded like blackbirds and thrushes, a mist over the water indicated a nice day. We set off in bright hot sun towards the first lock, on putting in the card it was evident that it had not clocked off a unit as the microchip had not gone into the box. The bottom set of gates were open, and it is protocol here to leave the gates open when you leave a lock (unless otherwise advised by the Rangers). The operations of the panel have to be done in sequence, you cannot open the top paddles until the bottom gates are firmly closed. Operation is very easy and much similar to the ones we are used to on the Aire and Calder. We travel through the countryside hearing many bird calls we do not recognise, but cannot see the birds. After about 1.5 hours we reach Ballyconnel and moor beside the facilities. We go for a walk into the town, small but with shops of all descriptions and many pubs. I find a clothes shop and buy shorts. We pick up a few souveneirs and decide to go for a beer, I have my first Guiness for over 30 years, in Lizzie Gugans (think that was the name), and a beautiful pint it is, so I have another. Back to the boat, it is very different in handling to what I am used to but I have easily got used to it. Dave and Sue have also got used to handling in this period. The boat turns about the middle and responds fairly quickly to wheel, however there is still a tendancy to oversteer. We set off to the lock only to find it appears to have no power, we find a notice to tell us we need to contact the Garda who will check out our food, we find that on coming back over the North South border we will have any meat and dairy products consficated, as we have a full fridge, and we had only intended going to Belturbet and returning in one day then we would not wish to go through this. We respect the F&M regulations put in place here decide to return south. The Garda and the Waterways Rangers were very helpful and gave us lots of local information. The Ranger said I would be able to wind just outside the lock, I had my doubts but gave it a try. In giving it a try Sue lost her footing getting down onto the stern and went in headfirst, engine put in neutral and switched off, lifebelt thrown out. She swam back to the boat but had difficulty in getting up the small stern ladder so swam to the end of the lock moorings (about 50 yards). We got her out and into the shower, she had a large bruise on the top of her leg but reported an even bigger dented ego as this was her first ducking. Sue said her main worry was the prop as it sounded so loud under water. I attempted to wind by swinging on the stern but the canal was not wide enough by about two foot so straightened up and reversed back about 50 yards. The ranger held my stern rope and I winded, but only had about four foot spare to manouvre in. We went back over canal and loughs we had done yesterday and did manage to see many birds but cannot identify them until we get home and go through our books, these have been now identified as a Ring Ouzel and White Wagtail. Finally moored above Riversdale Lock. Part 2 to follow. ---