Friday 20th August, 2021 Broadhaven Bay to Achill Sound
Another headland to go round … the west coast is littered with them and none of them are easy! Today was a drizzly rainy day with poor visibility. We sailed downwind to Eris Head after leaving Broadhaven Bay. As we rounded the head, the wind was now a close hold and Tacked down the coast. Further South, and the wind was kind, and swung us out past Achill head in the mist and the gloom. It rained hard most of the way. It was a shame the weather was so bad as the views along this coast are supposed to be some of the best coastline in Ireland! At one point the top of the mountain appeared from the cloud and I captured these…
Once we rounded Achill Head, we were hoping for a downwind sail to take is towards Clew Bay, but the wind was too light with the rough sea state, so we motored for two hours. We rounded Achillbeg Island and stuck our nose in to Achill sound to investigate an anchorage. It was way to shallow and not obvious where to go, so we chickened out and anchored off the beach on the East side of Achillbeg. It was a nice easy night until 6am the next morning when we started to drag anchor towards the beach and the rocks!
Saturday 21st August, Achillbeg to Killary Lough
We departed at 0900 and sailed due South to Killary Lough across the mouth of Clew Bay, past Claire Island and along the Connemara coastline. It was a fabulous sail with a beam reach up to 9 knots and then downwind in to the mouth of the Lough. The entrance is framed by mountains, and the heading is marked by some concrete pillars through the narrows
We motored through the narrows and down the long narrow loch avoiding the mussel farms all along the edge and anchored right at the end off the town of Leenaun.
Once we were anchored up, we rowed to shore (yep the outboard engine was still knackered!) and went to a bizzare shop inside the local pub, and had a great lunch at the blackberry cafe where we sampled the mussels from the Lough, and fish and chips … delicious. We rowed back to the boat and chilled out for the rest of the day enjoying the amazing scenery of the place. We were the only boat in the whole anchorage!
Sunday 22nd August, 2021, Leenaun to Inishbofin
We left the next morning and there was zero wind, so we motored back out of the Lough through the narrows and across the bay to Inishboffin through all the rocks and small isles. Inishboffin is recognised as being one of the finest all weather anchorages on the west coast and has a big maritime history. The entrance is very tricky with reefs and rocks, but the installation of a leading light makes it easier to navigate. Once inside, you are immediately greeted by the ruins of a Cromwellian fort on your starboard side, and the blue water and sandy bottom of the totally enclosed anchorage. Its a beautiful place. However, the anchorage is tricky, cause the Irish seem to love to fill all their most popular anchorages up with fixed moorings, so it took us some time to find a spot that we could fit in. Its really shallow too!
Azimuth in the anchorage 
Ailsa at Cromwell’s Fort
We took the dinghy to shore and went and explored the fort which is still pretty intact even though it in places it overhangs the rocks and you look straight down in to the sea.
Then we went for a walk to explore the east side of the island past white sandy beaches and family holiday homes. It felt very much like the Scilly Isles, and was very popular with the locals arriving by ferry.
White sand beaches on east side of Inishboffin
We ended up at the Doonbar hotel for tea but had to sit outside in the chill. A few pints of the blackstuff provided some alcoholic insulation
Tuesday 24th August, Inishboffin, disaster strikes!
The forecast was for no wind, and the sun was shining, so we decided to stay another day and walk more of the island. This time we headed west to take in the views of more sandy beaches, rocky coastline and peat bog paths.
We went to the pub for lunch and chilled out for the rest of the day on the boat. We decided on an early night cause we planned on an early start for the next leg South. We were both woken at 23 30 when we were tipped out of bed as the boat fell over! That was very disconcerting…. the anchorage was flat calm and there was no wind??? What the hell was happening? It turns out we had run aground. We had been in this anchorage for two days at this point, and the boat had been drifting around in an arc of about 270 degrees. Now it looked like the boat had drifted in to the final 90 degrees of the arc closest to the beach, and in conjunction with the low tide had come to rest on a sandbank at the back. She was still floating at the front.
Well there is not a lot you can do in this situation …. Azimuth weighs 31 tonnes. You can’t just get out and push her off! Checking the tide we still had another 80 cms to drop, so all we could do was check the bilge to make sure we weren’t taking on any water and then sit out the whole process for the next 4 hours! By 0100 in the morning, the boat was right over on her side… with the toe rail under water and fish swimming over the deck! The pub across the water was in full swing with music and laughter …. however maybe lucky for us the fog came in, so in the darkness no one could witness our embarrassing situation! Over the next three hours, Azimuth started to slowly right herself. Thankfully, there was still no waves or wind, and finally we lifted off at 4 in the morning. I pulled in some of the anchor chain and climbed in to bed. I think we survived!