by J. Little

This was a short but lively cruise, unsuitable for the morale. It only took a day, but I am unlikely to forget it. At the start the weather looked most favourable, but the conditions rapidly changed, with the wind increasing.

Cousteau III cast off her moorings at 10.05 hours for a reach round the bay’s northern headland, namely Blackhead Lighthouse. Sheltered by the headland, I was immediately experiencing catspaws of low force, thus with little to worry about. Cousteau then halted abruptly, obviously intent on lounging around in wait for a wind. As usual the canoe was in tow, so I up topping lift and down anchor. A dangerous practice, I later learned, was to leave the sails up with the boat moored only to a board anchor.

I paddled ashore and watched rod fishermen for ten minutes or so, until I noticed the water stir up the lough, denoting some likelihood of wind. I was on board within thirty seconds lest the boat get into any sort of mischief. This gentle breeze took us along to the renowned cliffs with caves and circular cable bridges known as the Gobbins. It was here that my worries started. First the wind backed to N.E. — first blowing gently, but shortly with greater velocity. There was no shelter given by the cliffs, and with such a depth of water I could not contemplate anchoring. My only alternatives were either to go about and run home or to beat on. I obviously chose the latter. It meant a beat of three miles to a spot known as Muck Island, a bird sanctuary, where offshore there are dangerous cross seas if one is against the tide. Being against the tide and realising that there were breakers to traverse, I decided to navigate Muck Sound. Before reaching the sound the wind became inconsistent, and several times within the shady sinister arms of the cliffs the wind would drop, entailing getting into the canoe to try and tow her out from the dangerous looking cliffs. Once, however, while towing, the sails caught the wind and the situation was vice-versa, with Cousteau III towing myself in the canoe. I don’t honestly know how I boarded her without mishap.

On coming up to the Island Sound I realised that it was low tide and a shingle beach stretched from the shore to the island. I should now have to wait I don’t know how long until the tide had flooded to a safe depth. As I was beating into the southerly end of the sound to anchor the jib sheets suddenly parted. I immediately left the helm but could do nothing in this breeze, so I decided to down main and anchor on the spot. The main unfortunately must have caught and ripped on the wire cross-trees. I sat rather dismayed, and had a brew-up.

This certainly wasn’t my day. I canoed over to the reef, lifted the canoe over, and paddled on to Portmuck, a little fishing port, where I enquired when the tide would be suitable for sailing through. They said not until four or five hours of the flood. I paddled back, and started mending the ripped sail with linen tea-towelling and a messy substance called Bostick. The patching very thoughtfully saw us to our destination and home again safely. I left against advice within three hours only, grazing over the rock and hacking through the seaweed. A large swell hit us off the northern point of the island, causing the canoe either almost to overtake us or poop us at times. This lasted for two miles, until I headed on an easterly course round the Magee peninsular to Larne Harbour Mouth. From there with the tide flooding over the Irish Sea to the mooring I had a most satisfactory run. I moored her, and decided on a dance at the King’s Arms in Larne.

The single-handed passage ended here. On Saturday I waited for my crew William Calwell to arrive aboard his father’s yacht Carina, but with the weather deteriorating I later heard that she had to turn off the filthy Muck Island sea and run back home. I certainly had no intention of sailing Cousteau III round home myself in this weather, so I decided to leave her in Larne on a mooring kindly lent to us. The reason for this was that on dropping our Danforth we immediately began dragging — likewise other vessels, even a 45 foot motor yacht. You may guess the wind velocity.

The following weekend we decided on continuing up north as far as Carnlough, and home that same weekend, so on Friday evening we trained down to the harbour. We were looking forward to the scenery round our Antrim coast road, but that evening, due to light airs and the tide flooding, we only eventually made the mouth of the lough. There was no solution but to anchor and sleep the night here, so we proceeded to paddle out of the main channel. On starting to paddle we perceived the navigation lights of a ship ahead, distinctly suggesting that we were in her course. Her lower forward masthead light and after masthead light were definitely in line ahead. Having no navigation lights we were caused some consternation and started paddling more rapidly. Believe it or not, the near crisis was saved by a lighted candle held in my mouth, there not being the slightest breeze. The ship, to our gratitude, veered off, passing us several canoe lengths away. She turned out to be one of the Dutch A.C.C.S. Ferry Ships. After this close shave we anchored, neglecting the possibility of the persistent swell acting harmfully on our beauty sleep. As expected, we didn’t sleep too long or soundly, and on waking quite early we found the boat surrounded at low tide by the all too common seaweed of our shores. After a meal we set out on a long and strenuous uninterrupted beat to Carnlough Bay, but as we entered the bay the wind grew light and variable. William paddled ashore first to find the harbour and hence a mooring berth. As soon as William rejoined Cousteau III, now only two hundred yards off the harbour, the usual squalls appeared. We were flying towards the harbour entrance until the lee of the harbour quay presented us with a contrary wind, which immediately proceeded to drive us ashore. There was nothing for it but to down sails, overboard with us and fend her off. We then paddled her into the smallest harbour I have seen with enough room only to accommodate a small German lime carrier, the Hans.

The Hans very obligingly dropped her warps for us to paddle over to our berth. Our only worries were the pebbles of limestone being blown off the quay, creating an atrocious din on hitting our decks and cabin top. Next morning the deck was literally a skating rink, proving highly dangerous to the crew. On finding no crew on board the Hans, we boarded her and slackened her warps ourselves, making a hasty retreat out of the harbour.

We had at first only expected to reach Larne again, but with a fine following breeze we had a delightful run home.