We are going to have to stop having so many serendipitous good times as I am not getting recreational reading accomplished. Only this blog.
Today, as in yesterday, as in Friday which in many regards is Thursday in the States, as in precisely Friday June 5 we slept in. I find myself referring to what time it is eight time zones away and I keep noting that you are all asleep most of the time that I think of you.
Today we only planned ONE THING! We took the tram to Howth Head which is pronounced Hoath Head. We learned that by mispronouncing it. Howth is a forty minute ride away north of Dublin. We chose it as a destination because it has interesting seabirds and we needed to get bang for our buck of a bus pass.
What a pretty spot. I will let the photos speak for themselves. We had a very nice lunch in a fish shop of two small plates, one of perfect prawn scampi and sauce, and the other of grilled mackerel with cannellini beans, sun dried tomatoes and green garlic pesto. We planned to leave the working seaport there and stroll along a beach and up a hill to the lighthouse.
Fish Shops in Howth
Working waterfront in Howth
Steve had noticed a boat that had disgorged many passengers and looked like a ferry or tourist cruise so we stopped there and I asked, "Where are you going?" Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dunleary). "Have you room for two passengers?" Yes. "How much is it?" After some thought the money man gave us both senior citizen fares, these were listed next to a hunched man with a cane symbol.
The Captain had been in the Navy, in merchant shipping in the Middle East and he was quite charming and funny. Now he plied Dublin Bay in his retirement, circumnavigating two bird and guano-covered isles and depositing people between Dublin's favorite fish market (Howth) and its favorite ice-cream consuming town— Dun Laoghaire.
We learned these distinctions from a married couple who were seeing Dublin from the water for the first time. Though from Donegal in the north the woman had been to Dublin all her life to visit her grandmother but had never ridden a boat nearby. The man was a birder and would yell things like "Razorbills!" He confirmed my two lifelisters (that is a word to a birder) as Manx Shearwater and Black-legged Kittiwake.
From Howth pier
Leaving Howth
Howth Head Lighthouse
Looking back toward Howth Head, lighthouse and island seen above
Dun Laoghaire pier
We really just stumbled on this trip, my mini-pelagic bird trip. If we had lingered at lunch we would have missed it. Because we never planned it there was neither the stress of making sure we got there on time nor would there have been any sense of loss had we missed it. This is stress free travel.
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