Tent Virgin (2 of 2) - Ireland
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Stumble It!No sooner had we gotten the tents set up that the rain ceased, only to be replaced by a howling wind coming from off the mountain behind us. We watched in horror as our tents began to bend and bulge in the gale. We felt certain that they would tear away from their stakes and fly off into the sea. We considered moving our tents to a more sheltered spot, but refrained when we pictured trying to do that in the tempest swirling around us. Instead we waited it out, and eventually the wind diminished to a firm breeze.
We managed to light a campsmoke. It would have been a campfire, but it persisted in sending smoke signals to the residents of the distant Aran Islands for about an hour before evolving into an actual fire that generated a bit of heat and light. We attempted to heat up some precooked sausages, but with our dearth of cooking utensils managed only to burn one end of each sausage, leaving the other end a chilly meatsicle. There was little to do to satiate ourselves but comfort our hunger pangs with the beer and liquor we had sensibly brought, and we dove happily into those.
Eventually we ceased to notice the cold, but did begin to notice the infrequent cars that would pass on the nearby road. It seemed then to be an immensely good idea to run up to the road each time a car passed, in order to moon its occupants as it went by. This little exercise provided endless fun for us, and we were gratified to hear the appreciative honks of the drivers' horns as they drove by.
We told stories and jokes and entertained ourselves throughout the evening. The rain held off for most of the evening. Eventually we all grew tired and headed to our tents. As we crawled in, we reminded one another NOT to turn towards the sea should we need to get up in the night to pee, as the cliff was barely a dozen meters from our tents.
I crawled into my sleeping bag and rolled my towel up atop my backpack to use as a pillow, closed my eyes and waited to drift off. The wind whipped at the tent, causing the looser parts of the exterior to flap loudly, like a flag in the breeze. I laid awake on the uneven ground, turning a few times to find the least uncomfortable position on the rocks buried in the grass beneath the tent. After a while I lapsed into a light coma, but I was still vaguely aware of the wind and rocks and the ever-present cliff so nearby.
I suppose it was around 4:30 in the morning that the first few raindrops pattered against the tent. This wouldn't have bothered me had it remained just a light pattering, but the rain soon began falling in heavy sheets, pounding on the fabric like gravel. About two minutes after the heavy rain started, the tent demonstrated the reason behind its reputation for leaking, as water began to seep through the tent bottom and my sleeping bag. My trouser legs were soaked, but the rest of me stayed dry. Special note: Old Navy anoraks come highly recommended by this author for their waterproof qualities. I felt the sleeping bag beneath my head and it too was soaked, though my trusty anorak kept me dry and reasonably warm. I decided I could live like this for a few hours and drifted back into near-unconsciousness.
As it had done earlier, once the rain ceased around 5:30, the wind whipped up again, but this time to velocities that would make a tornado jealous. All four of us inside the tent sat bolt upright as the tent began to sway and buckle with us inside it. A second later we heard a loud fwoop and with it went the entire top section of the tent. Colin was first out the opening, and he held onto the one remaining tent stay, which was keeping the entire top from being blasted into oblivion. Jonathan, Brian and myself raced out to re-secure everything. Trying to attach the ties on the big piece of fabric in the hurricane was like trying to tie your shoe while riding on a windsurfer. But at last we tied them down, pounded the stakes back into the ground and weighed them down with stones. Shivering and damp, we crawled back into the tent and wrapped ourselves up in our bags. Thirty seconds later, the top blew off again, this time accompanied by a sickening rriiiipp as the fabric of the tent pulled away from the ties we had secured so firmly.
It was at that time that Colin suggested we abandon ship. We agreed wholeheartedly and gave the order to man the lifeboats. We scurried round the tent, pulling up stakes and untying ties. We toyed with the idea of setting our tent free, allowing the wind to launch it out to sea as it had been trying to do, but just as we hollered "Fly! Be free!" there was a lull in the wind. The tent sagged to the ground like the Hindenburg, only without the fire and death.
Thus voted off the island, we gathered together our soggy sleeping bags, backpacks and the corpse of the tent and hurled them into our cars. As we ran around like fools in the frigid wind and wet grass, we envied our friends' tents, both designed for weather like this. They sat on the grass like two bricks, well able to resist the fury of the gale. Our tent had been designed for quiet, calm nights spent in some bureaucracy-approved campground, not out on some cliff face like we were doing. We envied even more the five tents that had been set up before we came there. We now understood the windbreaking value of the wall that they had been erected against.
Colin and I contemplated these details as we fell asleep in his car and Brian and Jonathan snoozed in Brian's car, until the others arose from their slumber around 9am. Then we packed up our stuff and took a last look around the site of the last night's debacle. The stones we had tried to weigh our tent down with formed a little circle in the middle of the field – a little Tenthenge. I imagined future civilizations contemplating these stones' configuration and wondering what they were used for. "Maybe this was where the ancients first experimented with flight?" they would philosophize. They wouldn't be far off.
Just then a family of Americans pulled up to the site. I pointed them out by initiating our new game, "Spot the Yank." I told Colin as they drove up to watch what they do: they'll get out, walk to the cliff's edge, take a couple of photos, and drive off again within five minutes. As if choreographed, they followed my script exactly. Colin was amazed that I knew this. I explained that many Americans would rather appreciate the pictures than the place itself. It was sad, and I pitied my countrymen. I had earned the right to pity them, as I had braved this place, while they would likely forever remain Tent Virgins.
