We fully expected to dry out in the early hours of the morning, when we had low tide, and hadn't expected any problems as we frequently dried out in other harbours last year. However, this harbour has a slope from the harbour wall! This meant that for a couple of hours this morning we were trying to sleep at an angle of what seemed about 45° - it wasn't but it seemed like it. My left buttock was going numb with the tension of holding myself in the bed 😅. Ian was snoring away so not worried about it. So I managed to wedge myself so I wouldn't fall out and listened to the water slapping on the hull as the tide came in and we levelled out again 😅. We decided to anchor this evening with lots of water under us.
As we had to leave the harbour by about midday, to get out with the rising tide, we explored Carlingford village after breakfast. Just before we left Anya to explore a group of wetsuit clad youngsters, each topped with a yellow helmet, arrived to throw themselves off the wall. We were obviously moored in the prime jumping spot as there were moans that they had to jump off the other side of the wall and swim back to climb up the steps. Also a few mutters of "Sir ... can't you get them to move the boat?" 😄. We did let the group leader know we'd be moving in a few hours so everyone seemed happy.
We discovered from the local tourist information that Carlingford is actually a city, having been served a warrant by King John who stayed in the castle for 3 nights. With only about 300 residents it's the smallest city in Ireland.
The village/city is really quite pretty with colourful shops and flowers. Several castles, a jail in the old city gate as well as the harbour full of children leaping off the walls, paddle boarding and swimming - we found an adventure centre near the harbour.
We left our mooring about midday and had a lovely sail along the shore line towards the head of the Lough. Warrenpoint is at the top. It is basically a commercial port and based on what locals had told us and information in our almanac, we gave it a miss. We're now on the northern side of the Lough so have crossed into Northern Ireland territory. The courtesy flag can now come down and we can just sail with our ensign flying.
We're having a chilled (or chilly) rest of the day at anchor - Ian and I have both donned our birthday socks.
Looks like the plan for tomorrow is to head out of the Lough with the tide as it flows out. Then head northwards towards Strangford Lough with possibly an overnight stop on our way, depending on our progress and weather.
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