The Royal Cork Yacht club is the oldest yacht club in the world. Barra spent a total of three weeks at the club while I was home and Eric traveled around Ireland. When I arrived back on Barra I found Eric deeply entrenched in the local IRC fleet racing on a great X 334 named Ellia. Owned and skippered by one of the nicest people we have met in all our travels Ria Lyden. Eric trimmed spinnaker for her for two weekend events and two Thursday nights, the first of which Ellia took top honors and won a Heineken mini keg. Through Ria Rob and I were able to secure a ride on anther IRC yacht. We too were able to finish in the top three of our class and bring home a nice trophy. All this great hospitality and good harbor racing made the waiting for a weather window bearable. Thanks as well to Andrew Murray for playing his heart out in the semifinals of the U.S. Open against first seed Raphael Nadal to move on to the finals against Roger Federer. We all enjoyed a chance to relax in front of some great tennis!

After a deep low passed we hopped out of Cork and had a great fifteen hour sprint towards the Scilly Islands. As we approached the shipping channels of the English Channel, the large high pressure moving north from the Azores left us becalmed so we finished our trip with some smooth motoring. Arriving in Brest late on Saturday, Rob left early Sunday for New York Fashion Week and will be back on Wednesday when we will start our cruising in France.

Katie Auth greeted us on the dock in Brest for she is working here at the university teaching English. Hopefully she will be able to join us for the weekend as we head south along the coast setting ourselves up for a crossing to Spain. We have already met a few boats headed in that direction. Two class 40s are headed down to Spain with charter guests and then on to Madeira and the Canaries. They too will be participating in the ARC and hopefully we will see Jan and Felix in our travels later this year.