Isles of Man

After spending almost a week in Dublin, we saw that there would be a small window in the seemingly never ending streak of low pressure gales coming in from the west and moving easterly across the Irish sea. Weather forecasts said that winds would be up to 8 m/s for approximately 12 hours and we decided to use this window to get to Isles of Man safely. We headed out at first light in the morning. Initially we had a pleasant downwind run, but winds quickly increased. In our boat we need to reef the sails when winds get steadily above 10 m/s. This happened around midday. We had a plan to reef the sails (make them smaller) while we were sailing without starting the engine to steer into the wind - and I really tried - but it was impossible. I worked with this for at least half an hour, a rather tough and stressful experience in the winds and seas, but eventually managed. This period can actually be identified if looking closely at our track going from Dublin to Isles of Man: about midway a visible deviation in our track can be identified, while we work with the sails. We arrived at our destination -the rocky shores of the Island - just before sundown, and now the winds were 14 m/s. I don't know why we even bother to read the forecasts, they seem to have no correlation with our actual experiences. We could not get into the marina - it was closed because of the tides - but we could tie up at a anchor buoy behind the breakwater.

At two o'clock in the morning the water level was high enough for the gates to the marina to open, and we could enter properly.

The next two days we stayed in Peel:

Visited castles:

And generally enjoyed ourselves:

All in all Isles of Man is a great place! We bought a SIM card in cash without having to register anywhere. The card activation procedures involved inserting the card into the phone after which we had unlimited data for the next 5 days for a price of 5 pounds. They don't sort their garbage - you just throw it into a garbage container - and they drive extremely fast on their motor cycles. I love Isle of Man - it's the most manly Island I have ever visited :-)