It's all about the sea

On Sunday afternoon there was a knock at the door and the owner of the house presented us with three live lobsters. "You'll know what to do with these, don't ya"? Well luckily we did and we took then gratefully, first using them to amuse the grandchildren and then we prepared the boiling pot.

To boil lobster you take the same approach as with crab and put them in the freezer first for a few minutes to slow their senses, before plunging them into salted water that's at the boil. The big boiling pot was again perfect for this.

After about ten or so minutes they were pink all over and ready for a cool off in the washing up bowl before we set about opening them up and extracting the flesh.

On Monday the tide was just right to allow us to drive across the strand to Omey Island. This is a mile or two from where we are staying and we were able to drive to the car park and watch the waters retreat until it was clear to drive over. The channel between the mainland and island is about as deep as a vehicle so you don't want to get the timing wrong.

We also received a top tip regarding how and where to fish near the house. The owner showed us a place to stand on the rocks which would give a good cast and reduce the chances of snagging the line.  Amateurs like us also needed to be told that the best time to fish for Pollock and Mackerel is around two hours before and after the high tide but not for the hour across the tide. So they need flowing water.

As other amateurs reading this will no doubt understand,  standing on rocks, right next to the swell, at water level on a rising tide at the side of the Atlantic, certainly occupies your mind. I was trying to count waves, looking for the seventh one and at the same time watching the water fill the spot across which we would need to jump to get back above the high water mark.

Once I had the correct lure - a German Sprat, plus a line that wouldn't break on the first snag on the rocks or seaweed, we were in business. The first fish I landed was a 3.5lb Pollock!

This morning (Wednesday 31 May) the tide was rising at breakfast so I had another hour on the rocks and landed three standard sized fish and so now we have enough to feed six plus two this evening.

Beautiful Connemara

We are here in the west of Connemara, just less than two hours from Galway. The house is on the Aughrus peninsula, not far from Cleggan. The views all around are stupendous and the beach is a three minute walk.

There's no-one here other than the local residents. There's plenty of small scale farming, with just a few cows seen locally. A lot of ground is boggy but plenty has been reclaimed and forms small fenced pastures. The headland above Dawn's head in the photograph above is covered in flowers, including purple orchids so there's not a lot of grass being eaten at present.

Robin is enjoying the tiled floor throughout most of the ground floor...

Bruce is at home on the beach...

Rock pooling has started in earnest...

...but catch of the day came from very generous guys in Cleggan, who donated two crabs when Tristan started to enquire about buying fish. So we cooked and prepared them for tea on Saturday.

Here's our nearest beach, as the tide is going out.

This is the short walk back to the house (in the near distance).

It's absolutely beautiful here and at the moment we can talk only about coming back every year!

Off we go again

It's back to Europe this early summer but we are heading west to Ireland. So there are worries about the weather, especially as we have been used to hot, dry days and warm nights during our last trips to Iberia and the Balkans.

We are initially going to Connemara for a week with all the family and will be based near Clifden. We are hoping for great scenery and views like this.

Then it's north to a family wedding in Sligo before we crack open the camping gear and begin to wander south along the coast to wherever our fancy takes us.

This year we have upgraded the Landy to provide more battery charging capacity and reduce the reliance on mains hookup at campsites. This is through the addition of a 100W solar panel on the roof which feeds our existing service battery through a new bit of electronics.

The solar panel came from Photonic Universe and the box of electronics is an MPPT controller for the panel and a dual battery charger that handles the vehicle and service batteries. This is a Ctek D250SA from Tayna.

The important point about MPPT control of a solar panel is that it is Maximum Power Point Tracking and as such, the controller is watching the output that the panel is providing. The comes from the amount of sunlight falling onto it and the controller adjusts the load that it is presenting to the panel in order to maximise the output.

In other words the product of Voltage and Amperes is maximised and thus the power going into the battery loads is maximised too. Just how much of that 100W on the label is actually generated remains to be seen!

Here's the panel in situ. I used the T-slots on the roof bars, with an additional homemade plate off the supplied brackets. I hope you've already noticed that these are painted Epsom Green.

Here we were yesterday morning, all ready to go.

There's a massive "Mini meet" near us in the west of Ireland at Westport. It's the IMM 2017 and there's a clicky thing with details here. We started to see minis as we loaded onto the Holyhead ferry to Dublin and there were more on our overnight campsite near Athlone

 

These people are from Croatia and have driven five days so far, including a ferry from Cherbourg to Rosslare. It's really a mini adventure!

After a great overnight stop, we arrived at our house for the next week, just west of Claddaghduff, right at the end of the road.