Roundstone Regatta
Roundstone Regatta has been taken place for over 200 years and features Galway Hooker and Currach racing.
Galway Hooker
A traditional sailing vessel of Galway Bay, the hooker (húicéir in Irish) has a single mast with a mainsail and two foresails. It is customarily an all black vessel (from its covering of pitch) with distinctive rust-red sails.
Currach
The currach (also curach or curragh) is a flat-bottomed, keel-less Irish boat used mainly for fishing and transporting livestock in the West of Ireland.
The highly manoeuvrable currach is usually rowed with bladeless oars held in place by wooden tholepins, but some can be fitted with a mast and small lug sail.
In between the currach races I took a few shots of Roundstone from the pier.
My local beach
I took a walk along my local beach at low tide on Friday evening. Twice a day (at low tide) a small island is accessible and is only a 400 metres walk. I was keen to get to the island as I could hear the grunts and calls typical of seals. I couldn't quite get close enough to photograph them without a boat so I took a few images of what I could capture.
A pocket full of jelly babies
Having lost all my personal images I jumped at the offer to shadow Barry Ryan as he shot a short film for Aran Island Ferries. It also gave me the chance to explore the island for the first time.
The day started early at 6am as I needed to clean all my lenses, ensure all batteries were fully charged and memory cards were formatted. It was a cloudless sky with a nice warmth in the air as I started on the hour long trip to the ferry terminal at Ros a'Mhíl.
I met up with Barry Ryan and Stephen Ward and we made our way to the dock to film passengers boarding the mornings first ferry. The light was beautiful and the weather gorgeous - more like St Tropez then Southern Connemara...
We were lucky to have Christina Keane and Simon White from Aran island Ferries as our models for the day. The gallery below shows a selection of the best images from the day. Click on any of the thumbnails to view a full screen image.
It was a great days shooting on the Island in the basking heat and both Barry and Stephen got the footage they needed to complete their promotional video. I'll post the link once they've finished the final edit.
I caused a little trouble at the end of the day when my insistence on shooting a time-lapse video from the pier opposite the ferry terminal meant that we missed the last ferry. Fortunately Barry's family have a house on the Island so I bought dinner and Stephen grabbed some nice cider (Druid's - not as sweet as Bullmer/Magners). We had a lovely meal and then headed out to Joe Watty's bar for a session...