Southern Ireland cruising

Dino said:
Lots of great cruising from Crosshaven around to Galway. Lots to do in Cork Harbour with East Ferry, Cork City, Cobh, Monkstown, Crosshaven all decent spots to stop off. You could easily spend a few days in Cork Harbour if you needed to get away from the weather.
Crosshaven & Kinsale are close to Cork Airport too.
Kinsale is well worth a stop, it's a decent town with great bars and it's the gourmet capital of Ireland.
The regular West Cork spots are all amazing. Cape Clear is nice too. The South harbour is fab in northerlies.
Lawrence Cove Marina also worth a stop.
Cahirciveen is good too. Good sized town close by. The marina is silted up so you have to moor on the outer pontoon.
Valentia is nice and you can get the ferry over to O'Neills The Point. Really good fish restaurant that don't serve dessert. The only dessert option is an Irish Coffee.
Dingle and Ventry nearby are lovely. Dingle is touristy but great fun for a night out and good food.
Fenit Marina is a well serviced marina in a small commercial harbour. Lovely countryside and great food in the West End Bar. Good active yacht club there too. Fenit is only around 20 miles from Kerry Airport too.
Kilrush is a well equipped marina with a boatyard and self service diesel. You have to lock into the marina but there is a floating pontoon in the lock and it's self service.
There's not much between Kilrush and Galway apart from the Aran Islands. Well worth a visit. Some impressive sea cliffs at the Cliffs of Moher and Dun Aonghus on the Aran Islands.
Galway is a long way in off the main route North but it's an amazing small city with loads going on all summer. There's a different festival on every week in Galway in the summer. The Arts Festival in mid July is very good.
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Valentia has a marina of sorts. No facilities other than cleats. We cycled to Portmagee not that far, -tour boats to Skelligs). We anchored in Ventry Bay. Quite sheltered if you tuck into the SW corner.(lots of mussel floats on the way in) North round the Blaskets round to Fenit is fairly exposed. Fenit is good, and there are a couple of eating places in high season. (also fuel) We cycled to Tralee as there is one bus a week!
From Fenit north to the Aran Isles is a long days sailing - with few hiding places in normal weather. You can go up the Shannon if you wish? Across from Kilronan on the Connemara coast is Rossaveal- a fishing port with a new marina. Nice pontoons, but they ran out of money so no showers etc. You can get the bus to Galway from here easily.
Galway harbour is tidal/gated, with quite a bit of commercial traffic still. Middle of harbour area - not very quiet. Galway is heaving with US/Japanese tourists. We continued from here all the way up the West coast in stages. Interesting sailing
 
We sailed via the Scilly Isles to Crookhaven and from there all the way up to the North coast en route for home (Ardfern) this Summer visiting many great places many of which have been mentioned in this thread.
Your “bible” for the trip should be the Irish Cruising Association directions for South and West Ireland and I posted an ad in the “ForSale” forum on 16th October. My copy is still available as advertised, and which may help you to sell the trip to your crew!
 
KREW2 said:
Next summer our club are hoping to organise a cruise along the south coast to the Scilly Isles.
I fancy going on from there to Southern Ireland, as do my two crew.
We have no time deadline, but I was hoping to keep it to about 3/4 weeks Any tips as to the best places to go, or places to avoid.
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Kinsale is one of my favourite places. If you have the time to go all the way round to Dingle then you won't regret it. A very wild coastline but incredibly beautiful!

Pete
 
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