15th oct - O miles

Setting off [photo here]

Ok you know me, I leave everything to the last minute. So I worked out to give myself 1 hour extra to play with at rosslare (2 hours if you include the hour before depature one has to check in) I had to leave home at 3pm.

The right oil hose for the oil cooler had started to ooze oil two days before and my brother Ciaran (my trusted mechanic) and I did a temporary fix by covering the leak with sealant, it was not a fix either of us were happy with, he was particularly not happy. So I spent yesterday morning ringing breakers in the hope someone had a replacement hose, only one guy gave me the smallest bit of hope (in Co. Wicklow no less) so I thought Id kill 3 birds with one stone, 1- see if the sealant holds, 2- pop over to Dublin to get PunctureSafe put in my tyres for the trip and 3- hope to get the replacement hose from the breakers in wicklow. Unfortuantly he didn’t have the exact part but a hose from a vfr looked like it would do the job so I went with that. Back in limerick I showed it to Ciaran and suffice to say he was not happy with it at all. We ended up deciding not to put in the vfr hose after all. Fortunatly the sealant held over the 300+ miles I had done in my quest so I decided (my decision, he didn’t like the idea at all) to renforce the sealant with more sealant as a temporary solution and order a new replacement hose from Honda (5 days for them to order and a few more for delivery) and have it sent to Greece. Its risk but life is risk and I couldn’t afford to wait two more weeks, especially as I have already delayed the trip by 2 weeks due to other stuff. Ill check the hose regularly and if it starts oozing again Ill deal with it wherever I am. Once I get to Greece its just a simple job of replacing the hose and I have the tools with me for that.

So anyway Im planning to leave at 3pm and and at about 2pm I do a quick once over of the bike, sealant on oil hose a ok. As Im giving the chain a chain a good lube (I know all the dirty minded of ye are smiling now) I notice blue specks on the number plate and a big mother of a screw sitting flatly in the rear tyre! The blue stuff I then realized was the puncturesafe I had put in the previous day in Dublin (just in time, what are the chances). I know many of you would say, this is an omen to cancel the trip but Ive always had bits of bad luck on my trips but in the end it always works out. Way I see it, no great endeavour was “clear sailing” all the time. If Magellan had a tear on one of his sails before setting out would he have said ah that’s bad luck, and gave up? We know the answer to that. Crap happens and you deal with it.

So with everything else packed and sorted and some time to think about the problem, 3.10pm now, I set the sat nav to Rosslare and it estimated arrival 17.30, I don’t have to be there till 19.00 to check in, allowing for sat navs over optimistic times I should arrive about 18.00 so I have some time. I brought the bike to a puncture shop and they repaired it on the spot, the dudes hands ended up blue as the puncturesafe sprayed on him as he was fixing the puncture. He was happy as he said it looked like he was working hard all day lol. So then with puncture sorted I headed straight for Rosslare. I took a pic of a nice stretch of road [here] and a sign about a “wow offer” [here] (warcraft joke...nevermind). I refueled in Rosslare and checked the tyre pressure again to be ready for the next day in France. Arrived at the Ferry at 19.20, no worries as there was at least a further 30min wait to get on. All went well onboard, free tea and coffee, cant complain!