What is it about the west Cork coastline that draws heroic voyagers to it like a magnet? Last Thursday, Son of City Hall, a rumble-tumble makeshift raft with two Americans, two Canadians and three dogs on board, arrived in Castletownbere following a 63-day crossing of the Atlantic from Newfoundland. Strict Irish quarantine laws meant that while the crew could come ashore, the dogs could not. For this reason and concerns about the welfare of the three animals who are pining to get to dry land, the raft, fashioned from anything that could be found, will set sail again within the next few days. It will travel to France where a more liberal view is taken of the arrival of animals from abroad.
Barely had the raft arrived in the west Cork fishing port when another set of adventurers arrived in Baltimore on the 33-foot long Saoirse. The yacht arrived almost exactly four years to the day of its departure from Baltimore when it set out on an epic voyage to cross the world.
In 1994 Mr Gearoid Flanagan (34), from Limerick, and his Dublin-born wife, Orla (30), decided to quit their jobs his in the computer industry, hers in the travel sector to sail around the world. They left Baltimore for Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands and the Caribbean. The journey then took them to South America, Polynesia and Thailand. They sailed to New Zealand, Australia and Madagascar as well as South Africa before beginning the final leg of their journey back to Baltimore from the Azores.
Mr Flanagan said they had no problems during the four-year journey apart from routine maintenance. The Flanagans expect to spend some time in Baltimore where they will make arrangements to over-winter the yacht, valued at up to £40,000.