We left Malahide and went round to Dun Loaghaire passing Ireland’s Eye on our way around. We assume at some point in the past there was a full arch and thus the name?

There is an unusual access system in the marina as they scan your fingerprints when you are “booking in” and when you wish to gain access back into the marina from the town you put your finger on a scanner which then states your name and let’s you through the gate. Once we had been duly booked in and fingerprinted, we went around to pick up the anchor, and thankfully Ian at Viking Marine had been true to his word and kept it aside. This was all the more honourable as the prices had gone up and he could have sold this for a greater profit, so hats off to Viking Marine. The anchor fits reasonably well in the stemhead but will need tweaking or a new fitting sometime in the future – but it’s OK for now.

The refuelling pontoon is well away from all the berths and you have to liase with the office who then send a chap along in a boat. He has to carry a case with all the gubbins up the steel ladder and then lowers the fuel hose down to the pontoon. However, for some reason he has to keep his finger on the control all the way through the refuelling process. He was bit quick off the mark when I went to put fuel in the other tank, and this meant he had to stop one transaction and start another thus preparing two bills for the fuel. I can see this being a popular process in the height of the season in a marina with some 800 boats.

We were chatting to the office staff asking if they had full occupancy this year, and they explained that two years ago there was long waiting list for berths, but given the economic situation in Ireland, they have as they put it, ” a fair few berths available”.

Anyhow tomorrow we move on towards Arklow, and it has been suggested that we might not want to go into the actual marina, but rather consider taking a berth on the pontoons in the river. We will check this out when we arrive.