Tuskar Trip

Tuskar Rock is one of the more challenging locations off the South East coast. The weather had been calm for the past few days and it was decided to give Tuskar a go. The trip planning is different from the usual direct out and back approach since this would bring you over The Bailies which is an offshore reef between land and Tuskar. Instead you need to slingshot and head East from Rosslare beach and then drop South to Tuskar. Its all outlined in Oileain and this formed the basis of our trip plan. Slack water at Tuskar was 10:00 so the plan was to leave Rosslare beach at 08:30 to arrive Tuskar around 10:00.

The group consisted of six paddlers and we met in Rosslare at 07:30 to allow time for a briefing on the trip. It was a beautiful morning and I was relieved to see the absence of mist or fog.

We planned to head due East for about 6km (about an hour paddling) and then a SE bearing to Tuskar. I had a small GPS to to check distance and speed. Leaving Rosslare beach you need to ensure you don't drift South to Greenore Pt as this has overfalls and strong currents. We paddled straight out and that brought us to the Calmines marker. Continuing past this puts you in the shipping lane so we kept an eye out for any ferries departing Rosslare. An hour had past and a bearing of 150deg took us straight to Tuskar. There was no drift from this bearing so we had the current directly behind us. Average speed to Tuskar was about 8.5kph. We did a deep water landing which involved getting one person ashore first who then helped to steady boats while the rest landed and scrambled over rocks. We landed at about 10:20 the delay due to hauling boats up on to rocks.

Tuskar is a well maintained lighthouse and its light is on during daylight. I suppose this is due to the volume of shipping in the area. The seals were very curious and a large number gathered outside the landing area to check us out.
After a short tea break enjoying Ann Quinn's pecan flapjacks (containing rum I'm told!) and a walk around the rock we departed at around 11:15.

Heading back we kept to a bearing of due West with the intention of the building NE flood pushing us clear of The Bailies. I stopped occasionally to check our drift on the GPS and found when we left Tuskar the drift was NE at 0.8kph but it had risen to NE at 2.1kph by 12:00. This higher current was confirmed by checking out some of the fishing buoys and seeing how they were being pushed with the current. It was interesting to see the eddyline caused by the current at Greenore point and there was a definite acceleration around here. Once we crossed the eddyline things settled back to flat water and we put ashore.

Looking back on the day, we picked probably the best day of the year to do this trip. We were close to a neap tide and the sea was flat due to several days of calm weather. I certainly wouldn't like to venture out on spring tides or rougher conditions. Overall distance was 22.9km