Ireland trip day seven

Friday, day seven 6/4/10

Hello all! I guess your prayers for good weather were successful, because we got to go on our boat trip today! I am not sure how Michael found this character but we had reservations on a boat with a man named Des. We were told to call on the day of the scheduled trip to make certain that the trip was on. This morning Des was beside himself with glee that the trip was going to take place. He told us to drive to Portmagee and ask for Des's boat. Honestly? We're just supposed to drive out there and ask for him? Ireland is not a big place. The whole country has a small town feel. We drove out there and we were greeted at the only dock in Portmagee by a man. He asks us who we are looking for and upon our reply that we are looking for Des he says, "all the way down on the right". And that was it. We walked down the dock, met Des and our boat journey began.

Des was the owner of the boat but not the captain that day. Our Captain answered to the name of Cav. That's all the info I got about him except that I noted that he smoked about 100 cigarettes while on board. We climbed into the boat behind only one other couple. We were early so we struck up a friendly chat. The couple, not married, were from Austria and Germany. They were very nice and talked about the places that they had already seen in Ireland. We next met a pair of men. One was from Dublin and the other was American. Turns out the American used to be a professor of geography at Georgia Southern, Michael's Alma mater, and they were there at the same time. Michael never took his class but it was still neat. The Professor now runs a business of taking private tour groups from the US and shuttling them around Ireland. He had already finished with his tour and was doing a little sightseeing himself. He recommended several places to see before we left. On the rest of our boat we had an older duo of English ladies, a set of two women (one young, one old) from Ireland, and a French couple who had brought their 5 month old baby boy. Cav joked that he was the new Captain.

We were instructed to put on the rain slickers over our pants and jackets. Even though Michael told Cav the Captain that our clothes were waterproof, he insisted because it sometimes gets "splashy" on the boat. Turns out Cav was right. The extra layer kept us dry and also kept us warm, the wind was a little brutal. I have never been on a boat in the ocean and didn't really know what to expect. Well I'll tell you, it's a good thing that apparently I don't get seasick. That tiny little boat hit those big giant waves and we went up and down, back and forth. Yikes! The professor was tossing his breakfast over the side multiple times! The baby fell asleep. Michael and I were good until the end when we just wanted to get off the boat. It took us 90 minutes to go 8 miles. I am sure there is some sort of Eminem reference here but I can't think of what it would be (8 mile...). Anyway, by the time we finally got to Skellig Michael, we were worn out.

I know I mentioned this yesterday but I wanted to clarify what this place is that we went to. Built in early 400AD the first Christians to settle in Ireland built a monastery on this island for seclusion. I knew all of this and knew that the terrain was rough and there were lots of stairs but I really had no idea. The path to get to the top of the island was straight up. Gilligan and Skipper did not do this on their three hour tour. Not only was the path essentially all vertical, it was also all multi-sized hand placed rocks on the path that served as steps to the top. We were also warned by Cav to be careful because it sometimes gets "slippy". It's a good thing I have been working out! There were 618 steps-one way!!!! Michael and I are both athletic but the heights thing was a little scary. Picture going up and down into Tallulah Gorge only with out handrails, without even steps, and it is all on the face of the cliff, oh and it is also about 5 times as high up.
We made it about three fourths of the way up and stopped on the only flat place to eat lunch. After refreshing ourselves and stopping the shaking we climbed to the peak.

I can't begin to describe what it was like at the inner circle of the monastery. On the outside you could hear the ocean and the millions of sea birds and as soon as you walked through the walls it was immediately quiet. There was a sense of God's presence there. It was awe inspiring and humbling. The view from the top wasn't bad either. We explored their beehive like huts made all from stone and wondered what it was like to have lived there hundreds of years ago. I don't think I would've liked it. It would have been very hard to have lived so far away(seemingly) from the rest of the world.

After our retrospective time ended, it was time to head down. On the way, we decided to be brave and actually look around. There were lots of sights to see if you weren't scared to death you would fall. We took our time but we got some great pictures. We also finally got to see the puffin. The puffin is a tiny little bird that makes its home on the island. They are a cross between a penguin and a toucan. Trust me, they are super cute. We caught them on video and on camera.

Back on the boat, it was time to journey home. The professor started tossing his lunch right away and the baby fell asleep once again. Cav took us by Little Skellig so we could see all the animals. There are 29, 000 pairs of nesting gannets. That's a lot of birds. We also saw some seals, sunning themselves on the rocks.

We made it home in one piece and are now packing to leave our lovely cottage in Kenmare. Tomorrow we begin the roaming part of this voyage. We are traveling to Galway and then on to Belfast.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

Have a great evening and thanks for reading my blog!