There’s no swell on the west coast

Before we left to come to Ireland I kept saying there wasn’t swell on the west coast. And the past two days it seemed to be truth. We left the Gweedore coast and it’s many island and the journey took us past some amazing cliffs.

And because there wasn’t swell on the west coast we got to go close to shore, into caves, and through tunnels.

Our plan was to go to Glen Head but then decided to finish in small harbour of An Port. No photos but the landing was on a impressive steep slip and we had to pull the kayak up on a little wooden rail track.

From here we paddled past many more caves, tunnels, and lots and lots of elephants. I did think about this as the land of elephants, as many of the rocks looked as big, small or baby elephants, elephants with trunks up and trunks down, and drinking. Why they were drinking sea water ai don’t know, but that’s what I saw.

We decided against crossing from Malin Beg straight across the Donegal Bay and decided to go further in into Teelin at the north west corner of Donegal Bay. What a wonderful place this was.

According to information on local sign Teelin was one of the first settlements to appear on maps of Ireland, as it was an important port. And we could see why. It is a beautiful estuary, with river flowing through a very green valley. We followed it all the way to the village of Cerrick on our way to go shopping. We were very lucky we didn’t need to walk the road to Cerrick we actually acquired a vehicle for an hour or so. And if you ask Lindsey what was her favourite time in Ireland so far, she would say that driving the van.

We didn’t come to Teelin just to admire the peacefulness of the estuary. We chose it as our starting point on our way across the bay. It started this morning, half way through we decided for a stop at Inishmurry Island. One inhabited so much that a school has bee;set up there. Apparently the island was infamous for its poitin production and since landing has never been easy, it thrived as government inspectors could never just turn up on a surprise visit.