White Island

Well, its Easter Saturday and we hurtled down quick as we could with all 3 kids on board. First stop Omagh to take on refreshments and then a final spurt to Kesh and Clonelly just in time for enough light to setup a tent for the boys. The night sky was remarkably clear and according to the sky-atlas on my netbook,we were able to identify both Mars and Saturn - Mars was especially red and quite distinct.

Next day we headed for Castle Archdale. Arrived in the car park with an open-air religious meet in progress; could not rent a boat for while nor even extra bikes so we went a dander till it rained and we retreated to the van for lunch. Timed it well as by then the boat was free.

Tootled off in the Oyster, all 5 on-board. For me, driving, everything felt very strange. Engine was really sluggish - even flat-out - which meant the steering was not responsive and the boat had a tendency to wallow about quite easily. The balance of the boat was easily upset when someone moved or shifted seats or even just hitting the wash of a passing jet-ski.

First stop was White Island. A ruined 9th Century church had a number of carvings mounted on the wall. Several of the faces were quite grumpy. Gave us plenty of photos, in and around the church walls. But the island was more an excuse to land the boat and recover our confidence than anything so we were all eager to get afloat again.

Having docked pointing the wrong way, took some deft heaving by Niall to haul us right-way-round so we could power out without any special tricks. By now Pauline was loving it, yelling how much she wanted a boat. Quite a surprise given her prior aversion to water craft. We headed round a larger island and behind a third. All the kids taking turns at steering the boat. Reckoned there was nowhere else worth traveling to so we just docked at the largest island and decamped.

I am positive this is an island I took the kids to last time we had a boat, way back in the 80's; the remains of an old house was very familiar. The weather today was a bit quieter than it was the last trip.

Everywhere on the island, wild garlic was getting ready to bloom and the aroma already filled the air in still spots. Found a purplish flower that Niall said was very rare and only found in Crawfordsburn; seemed quite happy where it was here. Walked a fair bit into the island hoping to find picnic seats (as informed by the boat people) hoping to reach another jetty currently out of commission. But to no avail - after at least a mile of following what was left of a wide track deep into the island surrounded by silence, we turned back. Along the way we found numerous examples of a rather odd fungi: very firm with a bright red inverted cap and clean white stem. Thought it very odd to be growing in the spring.

Returned to the jetty where we settled in a clearing for a picnic and to paint our eggs. Climbed the hill beside the ruined house to "roll" our eggs down; more a question of finding a target to aim at to ensure the eggs did not survive. A lake warden came by later to check up on things. Gave us a wave but that was our adventure on the "high seas" of Lough Erne.

Back on land, we headed into Enniskillen to re-provision and finally out to the site near Florencecourt. The evenings already beginning to lengthen for it was quite late now but still plenty of light for the tent to go up.