We’ve been hanging out in Kinsale, Ireland, adjusting to the tempo of the old world. Nothing could better illustrate cruising around here than the photo above (at least for the last two summers). The weather: Well, it is awful. It blows, it rains, there are big seas with tide against wind conditions creating overfalls, and of course, the sun rarely shines.

This is the marina for the Kinsale Yacht Club, a friendly, sailing oriented venue. The big cutter is Halloween, the first Fife design to sport the radical Bermudan rig (circa 1927). She is a stunner and still winning races. The norm is for itinerant yachts to raft, often five or six deep.

The streets are narrow – typically single lane with cars going both ways. These teenagers are on their way to the Kinsale Yacht Club small boat training class. Hey, it’s summer, so enjoy.

We are having a tough time adjusting to the crowded conditions, which extend to the supermarket aisles as well as streets and sidewalks. In fact, the market is so crowded that they use miniature push baskets.

Kinsale itself is a tourist destination these days, about which the locals have mixed feelings. But we have found several nice restaurants as a result, and there is music nightly in town.

There are lots of cute kids, something we don’t usually comment on. And the strollers all seem to be equipped with rain shields (which could be a comment on the weather).

Red hair seems to be the norm.

Exploring the countryside can be somewhat confusing as the signage is hard to interpret. However, we have managed to visit castles, forts, artists, museums, stone circles, and a cell phone store in Cork to get us back into the real world.

We have been hearing for years that the Gulf Stream brought mild weather to Ireland and even palm trees. Well, we can vouch for the latter with the palms above, scraggly though they may be. As far as the Gulf Stream mitigating the weather, one of the history books we’ve been reading stated the Romans did not bother conquering Ireland because the weather was so awful. We think they made a wise decision.

There are some advantages to all this rain. Flowers for one.

And lovely green fields for another.

We may adapt, but right now we are dreaming of the tropical South Pacific, and sunny Spain and Portugal.

We are here for another two weeks at least, catching up with drawings for New Zealand, and taking advantage of high speed Internet at anchor. And it has been nice to just sit for a change. However, we are both starting to get the itch, wondering what is around the next headland.