A Week on the River Shannon, Ireland, August 2008

Start base: Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, Ireland
End base: Portumna, County Galway, Ireland
Craft: Lake Star, "Corry"

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Index

Saturday 16 August 2008

Next day

 

We chose to fly to Dublin and use the Emerald Star coach transfer to Carrick-on-Shannon. Emerald Star are part of the new leboat company. Our flights were from Exeter at 10:00 arriving approximately 11:00 at Dublin Airport. After retrieving our luggage and finding the welcome representative, we got on the coach at about 12:00 for the 2½ hour trip to Carrick-on-Shannon.

The weather forecast for the next few days didn't look very promising, so when it "rained rivers" during the coach ride, it wasn't unexpected. However on arrival at the Emerald Star boat base at Carrick-on-Shannon, it turned more showery with sunny periods.

Being peak season there was a small queue in order to be processed by the staff, and we were given a mobile phone which they they would ring when our craft was ready. The phone was ours for the week and allowed calls to/from the boat bases in cases of emergency. We had time to go into Carrick-on-Shannon town centre to get a few provisions from a small minimart. The phone duly rang at 17:45 - we went to the desk to get the keys and directions to the boat. We were also given a Navigational map and a small wallet of general information.


Carrick-on-Shannon

 

We had deliberately chosen the Lake Star class due to the dual steering positions. It serves two purposes, you can be outside in the lovely fresh air and sunshine, and in my view makes it easier to navigate especially when mooring or "locking". It's quite a large craft with just two people on board, so previous experience certainly helped.

 


Mooring at Leitrim

We found the boat, put our stuff inside and were shown instructions on the use of various items like the gas cooker and pump toilets. Then we were shown how to drive "Corry" and as we had been on 4 previous boating holidays, many aspects were not unknown to us. We were then free to go when we were ready!

The instructor recommended we actually head North that evening towards Leitrim (our finishing base is South and downstream). We took his advice and left Carrick-on-Shannon at about 19:00.

Although the boat could go much faster, we decided on 1600rpm which gave very little bow wave or wake, and was approximately 6mph according to my satnav. There was no need to rush as we were on holiday!

We arrived at Leitrim at 20:00 after a very pretty sail in lovely weather, and decided to moor at the earliest opportunity. This was before the main town bridge, and we got some more provisions at the garage shop in the village before having an evening meal in a local steakhouse.

 

 
Carrick-on-Shannon -> Leitrim. Cruising time : 1 hour
 

 
Index

Saturday 16 August 2008

Next day