Invasions then Greystones to Dun Laoghaire

Greystones is a funny harbour - half built with portakabin facilities and building going on around it but priced as though it is complete and "the place to be". Without our Transeurope card and the associated 50% discount, we would not go back at their silly pricing. Shame, this must put lots of people off as the town and area is lovely and the marina manager very helpful!

Things had been pretty quiet since leaving Kinsale - after many days cruising in company with Andrew and Linda, they had hit Howth and we were in Greystones. So, we livened things up a lot - Ann and Martin flew into Dublin airport and joined us on board for a few days.

They pitched up in Greystones by Aircoach, a good service direct from the airport:

after one night in a Travelodge that was marooned in the middle of a grim housing estate (or so they reported). This made our forecabin and location seem almost 5 star. As they had flown with Flymaybe and hand luggage only, they were wearing many more clothes than needed on a nice sunny day. However, we got them back to the boat without any visible signs of overheating.

How to amuse two recently retired folks who both have brains the size of a planet? Well, you feed, water and exercise them of course. Martin is pretty crazy - he took the train to do the Park Run in nearby Shanganagh. When they visited us in Penarth, he did the Barry Island run in horizontal rain. This was way better, just don't ask us how to pronounce it. We met him in Bray, had an excellent brunch in Warehouse no 8 and then walked back after the food top up along the cliff path. Martin did several miles that day.

We also had an unexpected but very welcome brief visit from Andy and family. He is a heavy duty aeroplane technical man who is interested in having a Nordhavn 47 one day. Hope we didn't put him off for life.....

With our two new residents, we wandered around Malahide, did two guided walks around Dublin and generally upped the crew's step count on her Fitbit. We also took them for a little run out to sea, from Greystones to Dun Laoghaire.

A couple of hours out to sea with a little following wave action to amuse the stabilisers. It was a bit grey so no nice images to share. We did take this to add to our lighthouse collection though, Lambay island which you can see just off the coast in the map above:

Of course it started to rain just as we approached Dun Laoghaire harbour and the crew was outside fixing lines and fenders. The marina says that they monitor 37 (M) and 80. Only they don't. We later learned that since an aerial was replaced they now only listen on 37. You know the challenge this presents us with....  On a positive note, it was Ann and Martin's first sea trip on board and they seemed fine afterwards. They have already booked in for a Guernsey trip next season when we go for fuel.

Dun Laoghaire is a huge and relatively empty marina as this borrowed aerial shot shows:

The visitor area at the end was as empty as in this picture when we arrived. For some unfathomable reason they still tucked us right inside a finger and the wrong side of the pontoon for the prevailing winds. Squeaky fender time ahead in the promised strong winds....

It is very handy for the Dart train though. The station is 3 minutes walk from the marina entrance although our berth was a 5 minute walk to the entrance! The harbour proper is dead since the ferry links to the UK were moved to Dublin. Huge infrastructure, all laying empty bar one Irish Lights support ship. The empty ferry marshalling area had a fairground and stage being built on it ready for "Beatyard 2017" a noisy pop concert weekend thingy! Must go out and avoid it or drink enough for it not to matter...