21st - 30th April. Leaving Enniskillen for the summer. Sailing through Upper Lough Erne, and on to the Shannon-Erne Waterway.

We had our interview last week with Lily Dane, from The Impartial Reporter, followed by a photo session with John McVitty. The article made its way to the paper this week, just after we had left Enniskillen for the summer's cruising, so autographs will have to wait until we return in September!

We took the route to the East of Inishmore Island past Carrybridge to reach Upper Lough Erne. These cruisers are all at home today on their island mooring, just past Carrybridge.

Our plan was to follow the Northeast side of the lough for about 5 kilometres, then cut across to the sheltered mooring at Tirraroe for the night. We had never stayed there overnight and were quite looking forward to it. It was nice to be out on the open waters of the lough again, with interesting clouds today too.

However, as we followed the line of markers between the islands across the lough, it seemed to be a long way. We then realised that all the markers near to us were 30C1 or 30C2 etc. A careful check of our chart showed markers 30B, 30D, 30E, 30F, 30G and 30H, together with various numbers, but no 30C markers at all! We did know that we were still on Upper Lough Erne though, so we carried on, eventually finding ourselves at the South end of the lough. We spent the night at Derryadd, which was a pleasant mooring with a lovely outlook over the lough. We discovered later that the 30C channel was newly dredged only last year, and is not yet on any charts of Upper Lough Erne!

Walking up the road from the jetty we met this fine pair of donkeys.

Next morning a mink swam across from Inish Rath, the island opposite to our mooring. Perhaps he had been across for some spiritual guidance from the Hari Krishna temple there. He came up the slipway and then set off for some beachcombing along the shoreline.

From Derryadd we continued southwards and went to Derryvore jetty in Trial Bay. The sheep had come across the cattlegrid to see what they could find to eat, but found thin pickings on the jetty.

Sailing on to leave Upper Lough Erne, we continued along the Shannon - Erne Waterway to Aghalane, where we spent a week last October. We were waiting for the water level to go down to a safe level as, at that time, it was over the bottom step at the far end of the walkway. We measured it to have been nearly six feet higher than it is now!

Corraquil is the first of 16 locks on this waterway. It was closed last October, soon after we had been through it, as the water level was higher than the top of the lock gates!

We needed water at Ballyconnell, so had to breast up to two hire boats, so as to reach the only available tap with a hose. The second one was rather surprised to find us there when he returned with his shopping.

This cute calf was surprised to see us gliding past him.

Log ahead! There was a tree happily floating down the river, ready to catch out all unwary boaters.

We eventually reached Haughton's Shore, and were able to move across to our favourite spot the next morning, after all the fishing boats had gone out of the harbour.

Andy has been shaping some hardwood for the front end of the roof. Hopefully this will stop any more unwanted drips. Not that we have had much rain at all in Ireland so far this year, as the weather has been lovely.

The fishing boats came back later. They were not too pleased to find us where they had been earlier, but managed to fit in behind us.

The sunset from our mooring, looking out towards Lough Garadice, was stunning.