Saltees Paddle

We decided to do a trip to the Saltees on our own to give us a flavour for planning a trip involving tidal streams etc. We reckoned the first trip should occur at neap tides to allow a margin of error if we got the tide planning wrong. Four of us met in Joe's house on Wednesday and we looked at the charts etc. We agreed our best window was from Wednesday (neap day) to about Saturday. Beyond Saturday the tidal flows would increase and when all factors were considered including weather forecast the group decided that Saturday was the best day. I also got my VHF call sign on the Friday so at least if we had to 'Mayday' it would be an official transmission!
Unfortunately Pat couldn't make it on the day but we managed the required safety quorum of 3 - myself, Joe and Mick. We arrive in Kilmore at about 1030 and were on the water about 1200. LW/HW in Kilmore was 1000/1620 so our calculations put slack water around 1200 and 1830 or so. We were concerned about the dreaded St Patricks bridge and could see from Kilmore the ripples over it stretching out to Little Saltee. At 1200 the current would be West so there wouldn't be any problem with St Patricks bridge. I put in my first call to the Coast Guard and filed a TR (trip report). We started paddling to Great Saltee and there was no tidal drift noticable. We wondered also about Seber Bridge but all we encountered there was a small chop.
We put ashore about 1315 on a landing spot on the north of the island and met some divers who we shared lunch with on the island. The views from the top of the island were beautiful and we couldn't leave the island without paddling all around it.
The North West of the island had some nice swells and it was a bit of a craic paddling through those. As soon as we turned the corner for the southern part of the island it was perfectly flat and calm. Very enjoyable relaxing looking at the birds and the seals. Joe also discovered that you should never look up at a nesting bird colony with your mouth open! Mick also got some dive bomb marks on his baseball cap.
On the homeward journey we decided to land on one of the golden beaches facing us on Little Saltee. The short rest would be a welcome break before paddling back encountering the East flowing tide across St Patrick's. However when we got to Little Saltee we noticed the 'golden' beaches were nothing more than round boulders but decided to land anyway. We were all slipping and stumbling round the place on the stones and we christened this 'ball bearing beach'.
We then headed back for Kilmore and reckoned we would have some tidal stream effects to contend with. Conditions were very lumpy off Little Saltee until we made out into deep water. Paddling across St Patricks we had a East flowing 1kn current so we had to take that into account and ferry to the West of Kilmore.
We landed ashore about 1800 and I contacted Coast Guard - the signal at Kilmore wasn't great and they requested a radio check as they mentioned I was breaking up.
Great trip and looking forward to doing it again!