Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Drry

This week Northern Ireland welcomes the launch of two new coastal canoe trails.
The new Foyle Canoe Trail stretches for 33 miles from Lifford in Co Donegal to Moville on the Inishowen peninsula at Lough Foyle, passing through Derry on the way, with plenty of wild and official campsites along the route.
Meanwhile, the South East Coast Canoe Trail is a sea kayaker's dream – 50 miles of rocky bays and sandy beaches past the Mourne and Cooley mountain ranges from Strangford village to Newry.
According to OutdoorNI.com, the trails were developed by the Countryside Access and Activities Network (CAAN), the Loughs Agency and Down and Derry District Councils, add to the five inland canoe trails already in place.
CAAN development officer Kathryn Callaghan commented: "Both these trails offer a golden opportunity for us all to explore two picturesque corners of Northern Ireland from a unique perspective.”
Waterproof guides for both trails are available free from from local tourist information centres or online from www.canoeni.com.
The coastal trails are the first of four to be launched in 2011. Later this year the North Coast Canoe Trail will take in the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, while the East Coast Canoe Trail will pass the renowned Glens of Antrim, Belfast Lough and the Ards peninsula.

This week Northern Ireland welcomes the launch of two new coastal canoe trails.

The new Foyle Canoe Trail stretches for 33 miles from Lifford in Co Donegal to Moville on the Inishowen peninsula at Lough Foyle, passing through Derry on the way, with plenty of wild and official campsites along the route.

Meanwhile, the South East Coast Canoe Trail is a sea kayaker's dream – 50 miles of rocky bays and sandy beaches past the Mourne and Cooley mountain ranges from Strangford village to Newry.

According to OutdoorNI.com, the trails were developed by the Countryside Access and Activities Network (CAAN), the Loughs Agency and Down and Derry District Councils, add to the five inland canoe trails already in place.

CAAN development officer Kathryn Callaghan commented: "Both these trails offer a golden opportunity for us all to explore two picturesque corners of Northern Ireland from a unique perspective.”

Waterproof guides for both trails are available free from from local tourist information centres or online from www.canoeni.com.

The coastal trails are the first of four to be launched in 2011. Later this year the North Coast Canoe Trail will take in the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, while the East Coast Canoe Trail will pass the renowned Glens of Antrim, Belfast Lough and the Ards peninsula.

Published in Canoeing

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).