Ross-gu-astar-UK: Cliffs of Moher from the water

Cliffs of Moher

When we woke up in Doolin on June 4th it looked like it was going to be a nice day. It was sunny and the wind had finally died down. Kathie suggested that I do one of the boat trips to get pictures of the cliffs from the water. The trip was advertized as an hour long and was only €15 so she signed me up for the 5:15 excursion.

Don't drive here.

When I showed up for to the pier and checked in the manager and I were watching the waves crash against the cliffs near the pier and he said "There is a lot of energy in those waves today." This was the first sign that the trip was not going to be a nice smooth boat ride.

Please sir will you please stand in my picture?

Nearly got my feet wet.

The ~50 foot boat we were going out on was late getting back from the previous tour, and when it did get back the people on the boat did not look like they were feeling that good. In addition even though the boat was tied to the pier the boat was being thrown about by the waves. The boat was moving 5 - 6 feet with every wave and the people getting off the boat needed time their leap off the boat onto to the pier with assistance from two of the crew members.

After helping the people off the boat the manager informed us that we would not be returning to this port because it was too rough. We would land at another port and they would taxi us back to the Doolin pier.

So I knew it was not going to be a smooth trip.

When we got out of the harbour the waves were 4 - 5 meters but they were fairly well spaced. I was glad that I have spent a fair amount of time on the ocean, the couple from Colorado who had never been on the ocean were not feeling very good though.

I moved to the upper deck because the people that were not feeling well were lined up against the railing and I didn't want them in my pictures. The problem was the movement on the top deck was much worse and taking pictures of the cliffs was a real challenge because the boat was moving so much I had to hang on with one hand while trying to hold the camera steady and level as I took pictures of the cliffs.

I took a quite a few pictures and as we got further south the waves got up to 6 metres.

Our hour long trip ended up being over 1.5 hours. And we laned at the beautiful small village of Liscannor, where a taxi was waiting for us. The ride back was very quiet as every one tried to recover. I sat up front with the taxi driver and one of the crew from the boat where I got to listen to the local gossip.