Day 06 Thursday – Connemara Furnish Island to Coral Strand by Ian Bell
We awoke with a wonderful sunrise and wished Debbie happy birthday. We had been watching the forecast for a few days and the winds were due to increase and the swell was due to build so the group took the safer option of paddling inside Furnace, Lettermullen and Gorumna Islands to return to Coral Strand and the cars. Given the weather patterns over the next week we had also decided to head South and try to miss the series of depressions that were due to track in and over the North of Ireland and into Western Scotland. In this way we would hopefully get more paddling.
We carried the boats down the silver sand beach and left the 5-star campsite at Furnace beach and paddled out across the bay with a freshening wind. There was a short discussion on the exact compass bearing to head on before heading out across the bay. We wound our way past a few Salmon farms and towards a group of islands and shallows. The tide was flooding into a middle bay (similar to the Inland Sea on Anglesey) and produced a grade two rapid as it flowed around the rocky eyelets. We had to concentrate for a few minutes until we made our way safely through the narrows.
Crossing the sound then presented us with another problem. The tide was now flowing against us through the connecting causeway bridges and was too strong. We paddled to the edge to a small beach and took elevenses. Some even walked across to the local spar shop, others fired up the stoves to have a brew. Before long the tide had weakened sufficiently for us to continue our paddle back to Coral Strand. Here we unloaded the boats and packed everything into our waiting cars efficiently and made preparations for the two and half hour journey down to the Shannon Estuary and to the lovely Green Acres Caravan & Camping Park campsite on its shores.
