We spent the first week of August in Cleggan, a small fishing village on the wild west coast of Connemara. My Dad’s a Connemara man, so since childhood a part of every summer is spent there with family & friends – walking, fishing, swimming & soaking up enough of the Connemara air to restore sanity & spirit! This year kayaking added a whole new dimension & altered perspective to a familiar place.
from Sallerna looking across to Cleggan Head
Cleggan is An Cloigeann in Irish, meaning head or skull, usually thought to refer to the headland across the bay, though there’s a wonderfully gory story about an early missionary Ceannanach (Gregory) being beheaded by the local pagan chief & then picking up his own head to wash it off before conceding defeat by finally lying down to die some hours later! Don’t know if that story still appears in the official hagiography 
Even though we were now classed as ‘improvers’, our skills were not yet up to open water without the company of more experienced kayakers, so we stayed within the shelter of the bay. It still gave us plenty of opportunity to explore & get to know our new kayaks, without having to practise any rescue drills!
We also got to try beach launching & landing in different conditions & managed not to make total fools of ourselves in front of expectant friends & family
I'm going over there!
The other new skill we had to develop was good communication on the water. I had to remember that sound carries differently on the water, and words get whipped away by the wind!
Exploring Cleggan Bay
And on the days that were too windy to paddle there was still supper to be caught…
Fishing off Rossadilisk