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R/V Pelagia Cruise STRATIPHYT
	Diary overview
Saturday, 1 August	A moment of rest in an Irish pub…
After 11 days at sea we finally approached the half way station of our cruise, Cork in Ireland. Already the first signs of land, a lighthouse which we could see at night through the windows of the mess hall, caused excitement of some people. In the early hours of the 31st we sailed up the river to Cork and we were welcome in a very Irish way by grey clouds, rain and green hills.
As we have arrived in Cork harbour people disembarked and embarked, new vegetables and fruits were stocked and to all our surprise we then were allowed to leave the ship for 8 hours of sightseeing in Cork. One after the other, small groups of people left for their totally unexpected and unprepared city tours. Overwhelmed by too many people and too much traffic our small group first went for a nice Irish lunch with triangle sandwiches, home made soup and freshly brewed coffee. This was followed by a stroll around town and a visit to churches, a castle and the red abbey, which was anything but red. We could not really figure out were the name came from. The last stop on our improvised city tour had to be one of the legendary Irish Pubs. Just to be on the save side not to miss the departure of the Pelagia we picked a pub that was in sight from the ship, just as the ship literally was in sight from the pub. Entering the pub, being soaken wet from the pouring rain, we had a warm welcome by some of the guests, commenting on the bad weather and that we should not worry because the pub will only close when the rain stops, which could be November. We started to talk to one of the guests and mentioning that we come from the vessel outside the pub caught the interest of others.   The first Guinness and the standard questions were quickly followed by a one to one introduction to the history of Cork. Cork was the last stop of the Titanic before it's unfortunate journey. Immigrants embarked at the epically named heart break pier and the people of Cork used to get immigrants so drunk that they would miss their boats to the new world. Consequently, they were stuck with all their little savings in Cork with no other option than to spent it in Cork's pubs, fostering Cork's early attempts of a "tourism industry". These were two bad foreseeing which hopefully should not happen to us. The pub we were in, the Sextant, happened to be the oldest Irish pub in Cork and was one of the refuges for heart broken immigrants. In turn for the nice stories we gave a one to one introduction on oceanography, "yes it is quite similar to Jacques Cousteau…" but I think we have lost our audience in details after 5 minutes. The next topic was beer, we had order Guinness but actually Murphys dark strong, beer which is proudly brewed in Cork, is the beer of choice. Recently, the Murphy brewery was saved from bankruptcy by Heineken so being from a Dutch vessel earned us a free round of Murphy pints. The finishing touch to this great night out was that on every last Friday it is "fishy Friday" in the Sextant, meaning that fresh seafood from the grill is for free. So after some delicious stuffed mussels, prawns, shrimps and grilled salmon we were ready to go and arrived at the Pelagia at 19:55, just in time for the departure.   All in all we have had a classic day in Cork and all of us will keep Cork and the Irish in best memories. If one of you ever happens to be in Cork at the last Friday of the months, the Sextant is the place to be. It is right at the pier, you can't miss it and you won't regret it. Jan Finke