Inis an Ghaill...

Wow! What a day! I'm so tired now that I can barely write this. Worse though, I can't have a nap before I finish everything for tomorrow; mainly packing.
Today I've head to Inchagoill island (Irish: Inis an Ghaill), which happens to mean "island of foreigners". I'm not sure why it is called like that, but surely I was like a stranger there today! As I've jumped on the boat I've got my camera ready already before hopping in, and fitted my Sigma 70-300mm lens and started to shoot as the boat was ravaging through the lake. It would have been good to use a polarizer in such situations but the shake of the boat would absolutely make this addition useless and helpless. However, I did take a number of images, and I won't be filtering them out probably.

Same house on the banks of the lake shot 5 years ago. This time in close up!

Upon reaching the island, of course we docked and headed down. My "guide," named Patrick, told me where to go: just follow the path. And he headed to other side in front of the dock (there was a rocky dock made) and he said he will be waiting there. Sure I said!

Where I landed. The trees (scotch fir trees) were Patrick headed waiting for me.

The entry to the church.

I followed the path, got lost for a while, but then I've found the church "complex"; well, if I can call it so! Anyway, I did take some shots from outside with 50mm (because it has the largest aperture I have already and helps with shallow depths when needed). My main interest was the designed gateway, which was so narrow for my, and my bag to pass through! After snapping those shots, I started right away setting up my tools to do a panorama outside just in front of the gateway. I'm expecting problems in terms of the exposure and showing details in the sky. Also, seems that using Daylight WB was not the proper choice, but that problem can be easily fixed later on. Strangely, this WB made the ground and some areas of the scene a bit bluish instead of yellowish as it usually does. For this reason, after that point, I had to use the Shade WB.

Things went great in the beginning; panorama outside, panorama inside, and then things started to get a bit wicked. Finishing from this location, it was time then to head to the Coffee House. I got lost again, and luckily I got back to the path again, from which I reached the church. Found some workers on the island (they were there when I landed and started my journey on the island). I asked for directions and they just told me to follow straight in that path. Strangely though, when I asked them about the coffee house, they don't really realize it, but when I describe it as "that little building on the top of the hill" they reckon the building and told me where to go. Again, on the way, I was about to get lost, and then found a gentleman who guided me further and turned me back to the church (apparently I was going in circles) and from there, he told me to follow the path and he left me at a certain point. From that point and on, it was one heck of a way to that building!

Strangely, forgot to take a general shot for the coffee house with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. However, I started my work directly with a panorama from the outside. I was thinking of doing a panorama inside this small building, but I neglected the idea for two reasons: One, not much details inside that would make up for an interesting panorama, and two, the buzzing sounds of flies, wasps or even bees. Whatever was there, the buzzing sound was really loud inside! On the top of the coffee house, there was a nice view, but again, it wasn't suitable for a panorama. However, I did take some shots for the stairway with my fisheyes. Now, the adventure is about to begin...

Finishing from the coffee house, now it is time to go back to Patrick. All what I did is just follow the path down the slope (and had a fall on the way). At one point, I reached what seemed to me like a dead point - no way further with trees filling the way. All what was there is a small outlet leading to the beach area, which seemed to be my only way out! So I did.
The beach was really rocky. REALLY. I can almost say, no sand is there but rocks. Rocks filling the shore and I had to walk on them. I didn't know my location but my pace was slow now and hurtful because of the twisting feet. A tripod on my shoulder, a bag on my hand, and backpack on my back, with a camera around my neck. I even used the tripod (with VR-head attached to it) as a cane to help me go through the rocks. At this point, I realized I'm on the wrong side of the island, but it's too late now to go back. I had to continue and "survey" the shores until I reach the dock!

Map of Inchagoill island (from Wikimapia) and the red circle is supposedly where I got lost I presume, but I'm not that sure about it.

After passing through some muddy ground and dipping myself in water to avoid some branches (heck, I've broken some branches with my shoulders even!), I've reached a maximum point of exhaustion. I literally tried to rest a bit on the ground but the weight of my body and my tools didn't help and I almost fell to the water if it wasn't for me catching the ground with my hands. My head started to twist around, and apparently I do need some glucose in my blood for now! In this journey I was so exhausted to take pictures but at certain point (and before I get so dirty in the mud!) I tried to a simple shot here.

On the rocky beach. It was at this point that I've realized I'm on the wrong side, because the dock is opposite to this piece of land of high scotch fir trees (check 2^nd picture from the top).

After all, I made it! With all that exhaustion I did reach Patrick and we had a laugh together! It was a little adventure but surely a refreshing one. The amazing thing here is, in the beginning you feel miserable for getting wet, but when you get extremely exhausted, you would really enjoy the feel of water in your shoes! Later on the boat, the cold air and the splashes of water drops against my body did really help me cool down and enjoy the ride, but this time, I had to go on without taking photos on the way back - and that gave liberty for Patrick to speed up with the boat unlike the slow motion in getting to the island form the Waterfront. What a day.

All of that now came down to some loss. I have to get a new tripod as soon as I reach home because my tripod lost one of its rubbers in one of its legs, and my VR-head lost one of the screws; luckily it was the 3/4" screw designed for larger cameras and not the 1/3" screw which fits my camera. Now, I have to post this and start to arrange my things in order to leave the Waterfront tomorrow. Goodbye for now, and probably this might be my last post in Ireland...

Inchagoill (Inis an Ghaill)

Today, I went by boat to the marvelous and "mysterious" island of Inchagoill. I was supposed to go yesterday but, although the weather came out nice later in day, it was cloudy in the morning, and later on my host told me that it was good that I didn't go yesterday because despite the fact the weather came out good later on, but the air was active and there was some current in the lake.

However, I went on today in almost one hour journey to the island which was thick with trees and bushes, thus from afar you'd see only a green spot on the surface of the water. I got some pictures on the boat and there were other small islands and some of them contained houses as well! It was just beautiful. I had to catch most of the photos using Tv (shutter-speed mood), because of the shake along the way, and seems the Photoshop CS2 is not as good as CS4 with aligning the images together, thus I will keep this hard work for later. Lot of photos are waiting to be processed back home.

We reached the island, and according to my guide, he said the island is now mainly not inhabited, but it was mainly populated by the Sullivans, and another family I can't remember its name (but it stards with C and got V in the middle and Y at the end!!). We walked in narrow slippery pathways and reached the church or the monastery first. It was cool and peaceful, and you would still meditate in that old hard-rocky building. You can still see the avatar and the place where the font was kept. There, I couldn't resist to run a 180 degrees shoot (with no tripod) to the hall. But there is a question that always kept me puzzled: why the entrances of such old places were narrow and sometimes even small so that you have to lower your head down to get in?!

Some steps away into a little fine height out of the monastery there was the grave yard. It was a small yard and few gravestones were showing, and some of them were dating back to 1988. Some of the stones were legible but most of them were washed out, and the weird thing is that according to my guide who is a frequent visitor to the place (and I think he works to the government to check the island and its habitat), he said that in his 21 years life time he never heard of someone buried in this island, despite the fact that one of the gravestones read clearly that this lady who was 37 years old when she died, was dead on the 27th of May, 1988. She was a Sullivan as well. On the back of this row of grave stones, my eyes captured a weird type of gravestone and obviously it was ancient but I can't really say how old is it. According to brochures, this island should have a grave stone for St Patrick nephew, so I wonder if this grave stone is for him;

There was a chamber made of hard stones few steps away from the grave yard but I couldn't really tell what so special about it and why is it there. It could be a chamber for the graveyard keeper maybe? Who knows!

During my observations for the gravestones, my guide left me for some minutes to go somewhere, where he heard some sounds of chainsaw as we came into the dock of the island. However, after his arrival and we started to leave the place heading to a place called "The Coffee House" or "The Café House" (could not hear my guide clearly when he said the name several times!), we passed through some timber that was cut and organized in the shape of a pillar! My guide laughed and said to me that he made it that way when the two men who were cutting them moved away from the location, and they would get back and see this and think there is a ghost in the island! We couldn't stop laughing at the trick!

After some long slippery way and raising on some hill, we reached the Coffee House. It was a small place, but because the gate was so close to the trees, I couldn't get back enough to take a full image of it, thus I had to resort to the old trick; Panoramic shot. There were some stuff inside, like a coat maybe or a jacket and trousers forgotten by some people! The graffiti was all over the walls inside. At the back there was a stairway that lead to the top of the building (and of course everything was made of hard rock) and from the top I got a spectacular view of the lake and the trees, and here I went on catching a panoramic shot as well. The most significant tree that you can see almost every where in the island was the scotch fir as my guide called it. It is straight and high tree and almost bears no branches with the greeny part being on the top of the tree, just like one big broccoli!

When we got down there, my guide showed me also a small door that lead to the chimney and it was so small and dark that I could barely see anything inside. Finishing from that we had a long walk on a hill and some slopes down to reach the dock again. I took some pictures along the way for some trees and my guide showed me a fir tree that was, according to him, the oldest in the island and the hugest. You cannot wrap your arms around its trunk. From the looks of it, I do believe that it is something like a thousand years old!

Still the surprises were not over yet, on the way to the dock, my guide got deep into the forest at some point and called me to join him, and he showed me a house that is forgotten and not attended. It is also built by rocks and the plants grew every where on it that you can hardly notice its walls. Of course the roof was long gone. My guide said that he would notice the government about this house, who might be forgotten maybe mainly because it has nothing special about it except that it would be a good example of how people lived in this island in the 1800s or 1700s even, as some chambers were obvious and the structure for the chimney was obvious, where a special room to keep the cattle was visible as well. My guide said it is most probably was inhabited by the Sullivans, who were farmers and most of the island were like farm lands (and his own father worked on potatoes harvest on this island long time before) before the government decided to make it a tourism attraction and planted the trees and made the forests we see now.

Just before we leave the island, there was a little spot of clear land among the trees which was a place for BBQ parties as my guide said. The traces of burnt tree trunks and the benches were like they had been used no more than 3 days I would say. My guide said that there is no danger for fires here since the soil is damp and full of green mostly!

We left the island on a long way back home, and I was so exhausted that I slept for 30 minutes on my bed while I was typing this entry of the blog and the laptop was on my lap (duh!) while I was lying down. 1 day is left for me here, and on the 14th I have a long way back to Dublin. Tomorrow will be a busy day for me sort of. I will be packing and checking that everything is fine. I have my fears with my luggage weight though...

Cong, Co. Mayo.

Today, after breakfast, I traveled along within a taxi to another county: Mayo. I headed (with the taxi of course) in a long journey that almost took one hour of driving to a village called Cong, on the north of the Loch Coirib. This long way was supposedly to be shortened (with lesser expenses) by a ferry, but since the ferry stops at the end of the September with the end of tourism season, I had to take the hard way. Not only that, but a ferry would take you into the lake to an island in the Corrib, named Inchagoill, where a grave stone of St. Patrick nephew is supposedly to be there with a church that dates back to the 5th century, and also a 12th century's Romanesque church. However, today I went to Cong, and tomorrow, if the weather was nice I shall be heading to Inchagoill by boat.

There are three main sites to see in Cong, but I saw only two of them since I didn't really care much about the third! They are: 1. Ashford Castle which has been turned into a luxurious hotel, 2. St. Feichin Monastery which dates back to the 6th century, 3. A museum, which was the house where a movie was shot, named "The Quiet Man."

1. In Ashford castle, tourism was much still alive and people were going in and out, either for picnics or to play golf in the wide green fields around the castle. I took many shots around the place and I had a long walk in the forest behind the hotel (the castle). We were thinking that the monastery is somewhere around the castle but we got it wrong. Anyway, I really loved the trees there, and some of them were giants and obviously hundreds if not at least one thousand years old. On the way out of the place, we asked a valet about the monastery, and he guided us to it. It is in the village itself and not near the hotel.

2. We got back to the village and found the monastery. Frankly, I don't know if it is St. Feichin monastery, but it was Cong Abbey, or "Ministreach Chonga." It was a national monument as the signs in the place denoted and from the design and the hard rocks it was obvious that it was a medieval building. The graves were every where and I was trying hard not to stop on them. The dead deserve their respect. The graves were marked by a grave stones sometimes but lot of times they were marked by a Celtic crosses. The abbey had a second floor which was exposed like a roof, and I tried to take a panoramic shot up there. The building was magnificent, and after the castle of Aughnanure, this is the second time I see a real medieval building with religious significance. The castle itself was not completely medieval as it was obvious that it had been renovated to be in shape of the hotel that it is seen today. The abbey was unique with its ruins. Upon my way out, I snapped the gate of the abbey as well;

3. On the way back from Cong, I had a nap in the taxi, as the long drive to Cong actually made my stomach a bit disturbed. On the way though, I couldn't help to stop my camera from snapping but this I had to make fast shots with no HDR intention (3 shots with different exposures and blah blah blah). There were many spectacular views for Connemara hills and the Corrib lake with the road being up and down all the way, but I had few shots that were good enough, specially with the problem with the light source and the speed of the shutter;

Tomorrow, Hopefully, I'll be heading to Inchagoill, and only 4 days left to get back to Dublin, and on the 5th day then, I shall fly away back home!

Slow Progressing...

After finishing major stuff for work and my online course I might have plenty of time in my hands (neglecting the fact that I didn't work on the Arabic poster that I always wanted to do), but still I can't work on the story... the mood swings take a large portion of my mind.
I tried to write down some words but the story is still in its beginning although I reached 70s in lines' numbers.
The list of games is growing and I can't play them too since there is no mood as well!!!
Thinking of doing a simple homepage for my brother to put his CV on it with some of his work. He might be able to work online as well.
In the same time, I'm still planning to visit the island of Failaka even though I never heard back from those people. At least just to visit the place and change some mood away from the city. I need to get the schedule. It is almost the end of March now and very likely we might go out in April if I was lucky enough! ..... no one is able to get the schedule of the trips to the island and I'm busy here in this office doing stuff and can't leave that long (and if I have the time, no mood too).

You might be surprised to see me talk about my mood all the time but, this is my main problem. Everything is controlled by my mood. I can't enhance that, and everytime I try to do so I just fail again and again! What to do if you have a noisy home in the first place and surrounded by people that look at you as an alien?

Well, Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig everyone, Happy St. Patrick Day (nope I don't celebrate it!).