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Showing posts from October, 2014

Give a man a fish...

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GIVE A  MAN A FISH   AND   FEED   HIM FOR A DAY Give him a fishing lesson and  HE’LL SIT IN A  BOAT DRINKING BEER   EVERY WEEKEND © Copyright by Alex Blackwell, www.coastalboating.net,  All rights reserved. 

Sailing into the Shannon River Estuary

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The marina at Kilrush Kilrush has so much potential The River Shannon divides Clare from Kerry; it is Ireland’s longest and largest river. The mouth of the Shannon River is wide and inviting, stretching between Kerry Head on the Southside and Loop Head on the Northside. You really need time to be able to explore her lower reaches as there is little opportunity to find shelter before the town of Kilrush some 30 km up in County Clare on the Northside of the River. The Shannon is a powerboat paradise and a very popular tourist attraction for river boating. Consequently, there is a lot of information available about the River, especially from Limerick and beyond. The lower Shannon has Ireland’s only pod of resident bottlenose dolphins. More than 100 dolphins have been identified using the Shannon estuary. The success rate of seeing dolphins here is reported to be better than 98%.

Farewell to Onyx

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Onyx went to sleep and passed to the other side. Her pain is now gone, her frivolity magnified, I expect. Thank you, Killian, for your gentle kindness and generosity. We buried her on one of her favourite beds - a nautical one that I had made specially for her, with all her favourite toys (squeaky mouse, bitty mouse, crunchy crab, and feather dusters) and favourite treats including shrimp, choicest grass, and fish jerky for the long road.  We covered her with a fleece blanket and one of Alex's dark T-shirts which she always loved to hide in. We laid a rose at her nose as she loved to sniff them and climbed on top of tables to get the best whiff.