The Aran Isles - Easter Week 1979

"Wednesday 11 April 1979 Galway to Inishmore

I'll never complain about the Irish again ha-ha!  Our B & B family was so nice - the husband drove us down to the dock right to our boat this morning so that we didn't have to get up super early in order to walk down.  Got on the boat - it was a LONG ride - left at 7:30am and got to Inishmore at 1:30pm.  I was kind of upset that it was such a dull day - we could have seen alot more if we'd had nice weather. 

Lots of kids on the boat - Joanne and I came up with the brilliant solution that they were Island kids going home from boarding school for Easter break (and we were right). 

The most interesting part of the journey was when the boat stopped off shore from the two smaller islands and them men came out in their curraghs to take supplies and passengers.  We stopped off the middle island, Inishmaan, first - about four or five curraghs came out to meet us carrying three men a piece.  It was exciting to watch them bobbing about in their little boats - picked up passengers, barrels of Guinness, cupboards, doors, orange drink, and cement. I could see both Inishmaan, and the smaller island of Inisheer quite clearly as we rested out from them.  Inishmaan had two or three settlements with runs of an old castle on top.  Inisheer was quite small with a large sandy beach that extended up to part of the village.  

We landed and got a ride to what we thought was our guest house - but she was all booked up - told us to come back later - so we wandered around - tried to find an old fort - got lost in the mazes of rocks.  But the guest house thing worked out - we share a very cold room with two English women - rather distant.  After dinner we walked down to the beach - great stuff!"