How can I put it? It’s not really bustling in the harbour of Kilkeel, but it’s still a constant coming and going; boats arrive, unload their cargo, others fill their bunkers with ‘bait fish’ for the crab catch, prepare to set sail… There’s always something going on, but it seems anything but hectic, rather measured, considered, like on our Alps (comes to mind spontaneously). There, the day’s work is done just as routinely; by the evening, a lot is either done or prepared for the next day, and, you know in the face of your sweat, what you have done.
I have a few more conversations with crabbers and trawlers, understand the differences (and risks; fishing is concentrated hard work – one false move or a rope wrapped around your foot and you lose a body part or are swept into the water with the nets, and that’s it).
The place is strange, a lot of religious or pseudo-religious stuff. But at the harbour: I feel good here. Everything that is done here, and how it is done, no matter by man or woman, is ‘real’!
Then off we go, the weather continues to be good – but I always have a little feeling that the threat of bad weather is breathing down my neck… So I just keep driving ahead of it (but try not to look driven). And no, I have never been to Dublin. I never docked, never asked for petrol or argued with the head of the harbour authority, no. There was never anything!
Corona, you can guess, quarantine looming, again, because some don’t recognise what others have tested or certified. I turn on my heel and drive off without refuelling (let them follow me first). Inevitably, I think of the hurt that Ireland must be suffering after the severe blows from its ‘partners’ and ‘friends’ in the EU – the Irish now really have to go through the motions, have nowhere to turn for support as a nation, and it seems to me that I could have become an outlet or a whipping boy to be made an example of for daring to visit Dublin/Ireland.
So: I’ve never been here, but I’m going straight to… Yes, I just set off, to the other side of the Irish Sea, in the direction of Wales. I get some information on the way, unexpectedly have another special experience when passing between a headland jutting far out to sea and an offshore island (violent whirlpools near Aberdaron), but then I ride straight through to Aberystwyth!
You can tell by the names of the towns – another new language, but totally different, nothing to do with English: I’m in Wales. And that is, at least where I am now, officially bilingual, on street signs, posters, municipal vehicles. But if you don’t speak Welsh, you won’t get far here, you won’t get close to the people – unless you’re sailing along in a RIB and are interested in the country and its people. Then not only doors open, but floodgates!
It’s been a long day of sailing, I’m haggard, the tanks are empty, and the benevolent support from the harbour master comes just in time. He teaches me how life works here, what is possible despite Corona (almost everything), and where I can get something to eat for the night. – Then I go for my evening walk, and to a pub to eat mussels with chips.
Everything is weird here, so good.