Glendalough

Summer rain in Dublin and Sabadell

Looks like rain might be desirable in Catalunya, but wait!, today's low at 9º in Dublin?!

From my iGoogle weather gadget.

Spring-summer update

Yeah, I know, I haven't been posting much lately... I've been trying to spend my free time outdoors or socializing, rather than in front of my computer, since I've been quite busy at work : )

Since I last posted, I've taken some time off to travel and surf in California and Mexico and in early June I volunteered for Surf2Heal in Tramore, Ireland. That week I also moved from my apartment in Charlotte Quay with amazing views to Grand Canal Dock to a house in the very neat sea town of Dalkey.

A friend had offered her old car to me, but the transfer ended up not happening for different reasons. Now that I put the idea in my head that I would get a car, I'll probably buy one anyway. I need freedom to travel to the West in the search of waves : )

The move to Dalkey

Starting my day in a quiet and beautiful place like Dalkey is great. I'm quite settled in at this point, although I still need to get a small piece of furniture for my room, a clothes rack to dry my clothes inside and shoe rack for the house.

Dalkey has some amazing places within just 5-10 minutes from my house. Walking 5 minutes to the NE, you get to Bulloch harbour and a pebble beach. From there, you can see Howth and the East end of Dublin. Walking about 6-8 minutes S of my place, you get to an incredibly cute little harbor called Coliemore Harbour. From there, you could swim to Dalkey island --that's how close it is to it. The first time I walked there it was sunny and the water was calm and of a bright turquoise color. The harbor was empty, but I guessed i'd would only fit a handful of small boats. I continued walking on that road, following the coastline and, in just a few minutes, I got higher up on the hill and was breath-taken by the views across Britta's bay. It was just a little after 6am and the sky was clear, the sun shining on the flowers that filled every spot of the coast that hadn't been built up on. I knew I was close to Bono's house, and I understood why a rich and famous musician would want to live there! : )

More about Dalkey is to come in future posts.

Highlights of the last few weekends

July 23-25

Friday: Socializing

- TGIF: Food, drinks and relaxed conversation with colleagues.
- Paul's farewell drinks at Scruffy Murphy's.
- House-warming party at my old place on Charlotte Quay : )
- The MOST INCREDIBLE experience I've had in Ireland so far!!! This needs a paragraph of its own!

Not knowing the train schedules, I walked back to Trinity College from the house-warming party in order to catch the NiteLink. I slept through the bus ride until Dun Laoghaire, where I realized I didn't have my house keys. I got off in Dalkey and texted my housemate, hoping that my text message would wake her up and I wouldn't need to knock on the door at my arrival. She didn't reply, but as soon as I screecked the gate open, I heard my name from across the street. She was at a neighbor's trying to top up her phone credit to reply to me!

I was tired but accepted her invitation to go to a local pub, where her friend was at the moment. Oh my god! As we walked in, we didn't hear loud drunkard conversations but sweet singing voices! A bunch of 45-65 year-old men, a handful of 25-35 yo and three women sang beautiful songs with a Guinness in their hand.I was truly impressed by the singing skills of the people in the pub. And yes, they had a few beers at that point, but they were singing real songs, not drunkard ones! I had a real Irish experience, just like that, because I forgot my house-keys at work :)

Saturday: Trip to the West

- Headed West to surf in Co. Sligo with Marcus. Strandhill.
- Beautiful pre-sunset at Strandhill.
- Jazz concert with David Lyttle Three feat, Soweto Kinch (GB) at Tobergal Lane Cafe, on Sligo International Jazz Festival.
- Accommodation: We stayed at the Harbor House hostel (Sligo). Very friendly staff, huge self-service kitchen, linen includes towel, but no breakfast included.

Sunday: Surfing, Music of the World, Cinema

- Early session at Strandhill (pix by others)
- Dun Loaighre World Cultures Festival. It was great! I walked around streets and parks, checked out the market with food and crafts from different countries, bought music CDs, listened to Irish traditional music, watched a very nice parade formed by cultural group of differente backgrounds...
- Baraka at IFI.

July 17-18

- Surfing in Co. Sligo with two wonderful people, Karin and David. Enniscrone and more.
- Surf conditions were just alright by the time we got there, but we still had two fun sessions at two different spots that weekend.
- Accommodation: We stayed at the Railway hostel (Sligo), a very conveniently located youth hostel run by an extemely friendly couple. It has a computer with wi-fi and free cereal, milk, tea and coffee.

July 10-11

- 1 milion heads at a demonstration in Catalunya to claim respect of our people's decisions.
- Balkanarama: fantastic Balkan music live show at the Button Factory (Dublin).
- Spain won the soccer World Cup with mostly Catalan players.

Respect our people!

This blog post in English (by Miquel Marzabal Galano) summarizes why last Saturday more than 1 million people demonstrated on the streets of Barcelona. Want it or not, Spain is giving us more and more reasons not to be with them.

• Following is the beginning of a letter I really liked:

"Letter to my friends in Spain 

Dear friends, 

I would like to share with you a feeling, though I'm sure you are already familiar: in Catalonia are sad, deeply disappointed and, of course, also outraged.

I know you are many and many of us want to Catalan, which I like to come to Catalonia that you feel well treated here and, even, I like to talk in Catalan may understand but not always. I know you are many and many who respetáis our national feeling, but not what you share.

To all of you to say that the Constitutional Court ruling is an unprecedented turning point and determine a before and after our relationship with the entire Spanish State. It is sad and should never have happened. The statute was drafted and voted in the Parliament of Catalonia, then refined in the Congress of Deputies (which hurt us deeply in Catalonia), and finally was ratified overwhelmingly by referendum, even if for many represented a lesser evil.

[...]" 

(Original text in Spanish, click on "In English" to read in that language)

• This article about the demonstration on Saturday starts:

"A human tide of more than a million people has swept the streets of Barcelona.

Led by the present and two previous presidents of the region of Catalonia, the huge crowd came to express its anger at a Spanish Constitutional Court ruling trimming Catalan self-rule." (Includes video)

I'm proud of my people. I'm glad that people from different colors and ideologies in Catalunya are now bonding together, realizing that what we have in Spain is not a pure democracy. Glad they are speaking up.

Great weekend!

Thank you all for the good times we shared in Kerry!

Check out my set of pictures of the trip on Flickr.

2010-04-02 20.49.19, originally uploaded by martapiqs.

3 sessions in Kerry

It's Sunday evening, and the wind has been hauling since about 11 today. It might be it for my surf sessions this week, but my Easter trip is not quite over yet!

Today I didn't surf, but it was nice to hang out at the beach and relax at home, have lunch with my roommates and take a little walk in the afternoon. We also had a couple individual reading sessions were everyone was reading their own thing (paper, book, magazine), chatting about it every now and then. After some rest and snacking (berenar), we are now heading out to dinner at the pub, and then a fancy dress party, theme E! I'm Easter decoration.

Saturday I had a great time with Úna. We had a nice and slow start at the house, and ended up with a fully packed day! While we were checking the surf at Dumps we got a report from another beach in the Brandon bay nothing was working due to the wind. Given the direction of the wind, L. suggested we head toward the tip of the Dingle peninsula to find more secluded spots, or spots that would get offshore wind. Exploring new land sounded like a good plan, and if we couldn't find waves, we would still enjoy the visit of what we heard was a beautiful area.

We crossed over to Dingle on Connor pass on what was a windy and foggy morning (videos). We left Dingle behind and continued on R559, a loop road that takes you along fantastic places. We were amazed by the views and kept repeating ourselves that the drive was worth it, despite being longer than expected. At the edge of the mountain range, where the land meets the ocean, the road was narrow and winding, and the weather miserable.

I tried taking pictures from inside the car, without much success. I then stepped out and took a few shots, while U. stayed in the car, and I think I killed my Nexus One with the rain :(  Later on the sun would come out and would make the scenery look even more amazing. From that view point, I spotted a perfect looking wave and a beach with lots of white water. We drove over to take a closer look at it. We were before a gorgeous little beach at the bottom of tall cliffs in front of the Basket islands. U. said she wasn't going to surf because the white waters had no power and the waves were too fast for her, and she was happy to walk around and be on her own while I surfed.

OMG, I had my best waves of the weekend, practically on my own, in that paradisiac secluded beach. Two guys were out but they weren't doing much. I changed, did two sun salutations, paddled out and caught a fantastic right. It was long and it had power: so much fun! After that first wave, the conditions started to change and I shifted over to the rocks by the cliff, to try and catch the wave breaking further to the right. I noticed there were two different swells, and because of the incoming tide, waves were becoming less consistent. I caught another fantastic wave, and only another couple of okay ones.

The sun was coming and going throughout the session, the color of the water turquoise. In spite of the small number of waves I caught, the setting, the quasi-solo surfing and the quality of the waves made that session the best session of my trip. U. had a good time watching the surf, walking on the shore and chatting on the phone. I got out of my wetsuit and we continued our route.

We then stopped at the Interpretative Center of the Blasket islands, which focuses the life in the islands, and Gaelic (Irish) language has a significant weight in the center too. Quite a few people used to live there, they had a school and everything, they fished and farmed. A video showed one of the younger kids to have lived there until the age of 5, and he recalled that they had everything they needed, but it was a solitary place and the weather was very rough --they sometimes had to stay home for a week at a time because the strong winds would have just blown out the house door had they opened it. They moved away from the islands at the beginning of WW2. The center is located in Dún Chaoin.

We had lunch at the cafe of Louis Mulcahy pottery studio and shop, looked at the art, and continued our route. We crossed through Dingle, bought produce for dinner, and headed back on Connor's pass, where we stopped to climb up to a little lake near the road. The sky was very clean now, with clouds flying passed by, letting the sun shine every now and then. The scenic views down to the valley were now incredible.

We got back to the house and cooked dinner for everyone, including roast beef (for them), roasted veggies, caprese salad and apple pie with ice-cream (dessert was from Frank). We hang out at the house a little longer and headed to the pub for a drink or two.

On Good Friday I'd surfed Inch reef, a famous spot that can get really good and form perfect right-handers that roll down for over a minute. It wasn't working great then, but there were some waves to be had.

Inch reef and the spot I surfed seem to be very tide-sensitive: when I got to Inch reef it didn't look great --two of the guys went out and caught a couple of waist-to-shoulder high rather fat waves, but that was it for quite a while. The good side of it is that there were only a handful of people out. Then the push of incoming tide and possibly the swell we were expecting kicked in and it started to look much better. I decided to go out and a bunch of locals arrived --of course, they knew when the wave would be at its best! Some went out before me, and those who arrived just after I'd made my decision to surf got ready at the same time I did. I let them go first on the complicated path down the cliff, which involves muddy stretches and a rock climbing section that you can do grabbing a rope. I followed them on the rocks to get out. The rocks were very slippery but I made it without breaking my board, or my head.

Paddling out from that angle was easy if you timed it right. I let the first wave go for one of the locals to have it, and I waited for the next set. I caught a nice-looking over-head wave, started going right, but unfortunately it closed out on both my sides, so I had to go straight for another couple seconds, until it broke behind me. It was exciting because it was massive, but it didn't last long... I jumped off my board trying to avoid being dragged by the white waters too long, but I got caught inside anyway. I duck-dived many waves in a row and I was continuing to get pushed down; I realized it would be very hard to go back out paddling at that point, so I caught some white waters to go back to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and I walked back to the starting point (if you can call rock skipping 'walking' :)

I only caught one nice long wave, powerful but not too steep. I rode it for a while and pulled out when I had to. This time I came back out paddling with no problem, but soon the wind picked up and chopped the surf, plus the incoming tide started to make it less consistent. I got cold and went back in quite satisfied after a challenging session in a well-known spot.

We got back in time for another surf on the north side of the peninsula, but I was tired and plenty satisfied with my surf in Inch, and the evening session wasn't very promising wave-wise. I went back to the house with Gearoid, stopping at the grocery store in Castlegregory (thanks!). We had a super nice dinner prepared by Judith, and Don and company let us know that they were having a party at their house. Most of us headed over there but I was super tired! To my relieve, Conor said he was very tired and achy as well, from the session at Inch reef :D My roommates wanted to come back early too, so we drove back together, to get some sleep before the next session on Sat.

Easter surf trip

We are staying in Fahamore, near Castlegregory, in Maherees, Co. Kerry. It's so beatiful!!! There are several peninsula-like points, and you can drive along, with water nearby on both sides. Dry long grass on the side of the road... so cool! :)

The drive down here was very nice. Mostly sunny, and beautiful views. Hardly any traffic because we left before 2pm. I got a lift from Marcus, and I really enjoyed it.

Checking the surf at Dumps

When we were in the vicinity, we went straight to look for surf because sundown was approaching. We surfed nearby, surrounded by snowy mountains and moving dark clouds, and we caught nicely peeling waist-to-chest high waves under a gorgeous sunset.

It was dark when we finished changing and we took off at 9:15, starving! We went back to meet with the rest and found our houses. Dropped stuff off and headed to the pub. More and more people joined us at the pub, as they were arriving from their cities at different times. Since it was the night before Good Friday and it is forbidden to sell alcohol in Ireland on Good Friday, the pub closed at midnight (last drinks call at 11:30), so we continued chit-chatting at Marcus, Florian and Paul's place.