Marina

A relaxing morning followed by a bit of island hopping this afternoon. We went over to Whiddy Island to hear a talk by Eoghan Dalton as part of excellent Bantry Literary Festival. The 10 minute voyage was suitably bouncy and we piled into a marquee which flapped but the talk was interesting if depressing though he was trying to be slightly upbeat. He is a champion of rewilding and If you read the article you can see that Ireland is woeful as regards healthy ecology. All those green field may look lovely but they are a dead monoculture, the ecology eaten literally to death by sheep and cattle. It was very sobering. He has 73 acres on the Beara peninsula, an Atlantic rainforest, and he has spent that last few years restoring it to health mainly by getting rid of all invasive species (mainly rhododendron) building fences around his land to keep out the wild goats and sika deer then letting nature do the rest. It has returned in abundance. It makes a lot of sense. 
We bounced back on the ferry and then had  took our chips to the beer garden at the back of  the Ma Murphy's  pub ( remember Rainie?) Very pleasant in the unexpected sunshine
It was all going on in Bantry - apart from the literary festival with lots of literary types, there was a wedding party just arriving at the Maritime (note the excited wedding guests on the balcony all shrieking) and the participants of the WAM (Wild Atlantic Mizen cycling race, 130km) were all collapsed in the outside areas of the pubs, hurrahing and shouting.