South Meath Jet Ski attend Terryglass arts festival weekend August 2009

South Meath Club Aran Island Trip.

 The club made its first venture to the west cost on Friday 12^th June. We gathered in Lisdoonvarna over the course of the day with the last of the group arriving down around 10.30pm after a three hour plus drive. Of course most of us stayed out until the small hours of Saturday morning. Our heads were not great! for the maiden trip out on the great Atlantic. We met up with the Lough Derg crew on the pier at Doolin which was buzzing with tourists who were waiting to catch one of the numerous ferries out to the Islands. We have to say a big thank you to the Doolin Ferry lads who were more than helpful and agreed willingly to bring our bags across to the island for us. We had all the skis in the water by 11am and off we set for Inis Oirr the trip over took about 20mins. We were guided by the Lough Derg lads who had set up base camp on the island on Friday evening and had dropped a few boys along the beach at the far end from the pier. The beach has white sand and the water was crystal clear as can be seen from the photos. We beached the skis and went about booking into the accommodation and having a bit of lunch. After lunch the group gathered 15 skis in all and we headed out on a run to Inis Mor. We passed several Galway Hookers on the way who were making their way to Inis Oirr for a race event, they looked fantastic at full sail. It took us about 30mins or so to get to Inis Mor where we tied up the skis and went for a bit of a walk about for an hour or so. After that we headed back towards Inis Oirr with some of us heading across to Doolin to refuel the Skis for Sunday. There was some serious wave jumping done as can be seen from the pictures and from the limp that Sean had afterwards before the skis were anchored for the night. There was a great crowd in the Ostain were we found a corner and settled in for the night. Some of us even made it to the Ceile in the Local hall. The bodies were feeling the effects of the weekend come Sunday morning so we gathered up the gear and left it on the pier for the ferry men to bring back to the main land. We took to the water and headed for the cliffs of moher which were very impressive from the water. After that we made for Doolin slip loaded up the skis and said our goodbye’s to the Lough Derg crew with a promise to meet up again. With all in tow we hit the road for home. Photos can be seen in the South Meath tab in the photo gallery The Next planned event is a trip around clew bay on 11^th of July.  

 A very enjoyable weekend was had by all over the May bankholiday in Lovely leitrim. The crew started to gather on Friday evening, the Hotel in the Marina closed it's doors all of a sudden on the Friday which was a pain but lucky enough we had apartements so accomodation was still available.

Dec and Colin had the new ski's down and went about getting the first five hours on them between Friday evening and Saturday morning. While Eugene went for a bit of Fishing!!

The weather was Fab on Saturday and we did a run up through Cootehall and on up the river Boyle to the Lock at lough key with five ski's on the water and the Seadoo boat full of children from the Stagg and Charles families. We made sure we were back in time to watch the Rugby and well lets just say the heads could have been clearer for the long run we had planned to Tarmonbarry on Sunday.

Kieran arrived down with the family on Sunday morning which was spent drawing fuel from the petrol station across the road. We headed off around 1.30pm with two boats full of firends and family and six skis on the water. We headed down through Carrick and onto Albert lock in Jamestown where we had a break as the lock was busy. Then back on the open water heading down through Dromod amd onto the lock at Ruskey and ontowards our destination at Tarmonbarry. This stretch of water was new to us all and unfortunatly one of the Larson boats damaged it's prop on some rocks.

We grabbed some snacks in Tarmonbarry and headed for home as we wanted to be sure we got back through the locks before they closed at 6pm. We had no delays and arrived back in Leirrim around 6.30 having covered 109km.

Monday was a wet day and nobody was up to much so we packed up the gear and headed for the road with some great memories. We have photos up inthe Photo Gallery under the South Meath Tab

Our next event will be a run out to the Aran Islands with Lough Derg club on 13th and 14th of June

The clubs base over the Easter weekend was Leitrim Marina. The Wake boat was put back in the water for the summer. Kieran brought along his Larson. The boats did a run up to Lough key forest park for lunch with the families on Saturday for lunch. We noticed that there was a pike fishing competition on in Lough Key with lots of lake boats out on the water so we made the call to keep the Skis away from that area of water over the weekend.

The Skis arrived down on Sat afternoon and  some of the lads did a bit of a run about and caught some waves of the bigger boats based in the marina.

On Sunday we did a run down through Carrick and onto Jamestown canal. Then back up onto the Boyle river and in through Cootehall with the skis catching some air on the wake of the back of the Larson.

The weather was great with plenty of sunshine which was a real bonus. Water not warm enough yet to put on the shorties though and there was no takers for some Water Skiing or Wake boarding..

Some pics from the weekend can be seen in the Photo Gallery

The club completed our first planned run of the Season on Sunday 5th April. We had seven ski's on the water including the club's newest member Eugene O'Shea on his Yamaha 1200. We met up in Longwood around 1.30pm with both of the club's multi ski trailers in tow we headed for Athlone. We filled up the skis with petrol in Kinegad along with numerous reserve 5ltr cans for the trip ahead on the water as we had not covered the planned route before and wanted to be sure we had enough fuel to cover the trip.
We arrived at the water sports centre at the Hodson Bay hotel complex around 3pm and were greeted by Richie O'Hara All the ski's were dropped into the water and dry suites plulled on before mounting the skis for a group photo. We started up the engins and headed out onto Lough Ree and began the 25km journey to the top of the lake. There was a bit of a chop but nothing too serious so we kept a pace of about 50kph. The water was quite with only one boat passed before we reached the top of the lake. We then took the river into lanesborough and onto to Tarmonbarry.
We pulled in close to the waterfall took a few pics then over to the Marina to empy the spare fuel into the tanks for the journey back. The wind had picked up on the lake so we had to pound our way through a swell which was fun only it was a long run.
We landed back safe and sound around 6.15 and fair play to Richie he was there to see that we got back safe after a round trip of 73km. We took out all the skis and hit the road home for Longwood via a good chipper in Kinegad!!

A good day out enjoyed by all.

Pictures from the day can be see in the clubs section of the Photo Gallery