01 September 2009, Greencastle for Londonderry (almost), Ireland.

Based on a good weather forecast and positive assurances from the Harbour master we arrived with high hopes in our hearts at the pilot station of the River Foyle. Upon approaching the wind looked to be blowing from the right direction (South West to West) and while coming closer and closer it got less and less. I thought: “we are in business”. All our weather troubles are over and we will have a great day in Greencastle. From here the guests could travel up to Londonderry and the surrounding areas. Also when the pilot came onboard, he reported that there was hardly any wind when he left port. So up the river we went to the anchorage outside Greencastle. The closer we came, the more it started to blow and by the time we arrived at the anchorage there was a good wind force four blowing over the river. More from the South than from the South West. As the wind was blowing against the upcoming Tide, there was a nasty chop in place on the river as well.

Not the right circumstances to lower tenders. Also it did not look right to me either, difficult to say what was wrong, but it did not look right. So I postponed. Waiting for things to improve or not. The weather did not improve at all. It got steadily worse and by 10 am. I decided to call it all off. This was not going to work. By now we had a wind force 8 blowing down the river and the chop was picking up. Also the tide had turned by now and a strong current was running down to the sea as the river Foyle is tidal. There was a real torrent of water passing by the harbour entrance of Greencastle. That tide caused me some problems as I would have to turn the Prinsendam into the wind and into the tide to get down the river to open sea again. The river is not that wide that you can sail around in it; I would have to turn on the spot. During that turn the ship would drift considerably down river because of the momentum caused by the combined wind and ebb current. So I decided to wait until the tide would have changed again after 12 noon. In the meantime the wind blew and also some showers came by. Ireland at its best again and none of it in the weather forecast.

By 12.30 I felt secure enough to start heaving up the anchor as I was now expecting that the current would, at least partly, counter balance the strong wind. The pilot had returned onboard to lend his mental support and we heaved up the anchor. After a few minutes there came a rather startled voice from the bow, advising that instead of only our anchor, there were two more coming above water. There were two mushroom anchors connected to each other via a chain and that chain had gotten snagged around one of the flukes of our own anchor. The pilot thought that these were left overs from the 2nd world war when the navy had a big presence here. So we dropped the anchor a few times to see if we could dislodge them but no such luck. What to do next?, with this blustery weather getting a boat under the anchor was not going to be easy. The pilot knew he could arrange a little sturdy tug boat with a torch to cut the chain but that would take an hour. So while the tugboat got ready the chief officer asked permission to try a few things while we were waiting anyway. So while I was using all the tricks in the book to keep the ship in position on current and wind, the chief started fishing with a mooring rope.

Two mushroom anchors (called so because of their shape) hanging from our starboard anchor. Photo courtesy Paul Kroonenburg First Officer.

His break came, when in a passing rain squall the wind briefly shifted to the West and blew the mooring rope between the anchor and the hull. Now he could pull the rope up under the mushroom anchors, lower our anchor away and the two anchors were now dangling in the mooring rope. Now came the most dangerous part of the operation, getting the mooring rope loose again. So with a big knife on a pole and sitting behind a bulkhead for protection, strand by strand the mooring rope was cut through until it fell away and the anchors returned to the river bottom from where they had come. I was free to depart and swung the ship around at once and headed back to safer waters.

This cruise has not given me a single dull moment. Maybe tomorrow we will have a normal day for a change. Tomorrow we are at Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. This island is part of the Western Isles located above Scotland. The harbour master sent me three weather forecasts from independent sources, all declaring that tomorrow will be a sunny day, with hardly any wind. I am keeping my fingers crossed. This is yet again a tender port as the harbour is too small for the Prinsendam to dock and the only big dock there is in use by the local ferry.