{"id":573898816,"date":"2026-03-20T20:01:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573898816"},"modified":"2026-05-14T18:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:12:52","slug":"ballymastocker-strand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2026\/03\/20\/ballymastocker-strand\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballymastocker Strand"},"content":{"rendered":"

We woke up in Letterkenny this morning, which is a good thing, since that’s where we went to sleep last night. Our room is right on the corner of the building. The quiet road we came in on turned into a busy highway first thing this morning, so we were up a little earlier than we’d anticipated. <\/p>\n

We found a wallet just before sundown last night it belongs to Tim, a man from all the way over in Washington State. He’s just turned 65 this year. Maybe this trip was a birthday trip, or a retirement celebration. Maybe they just come here a lot. No matter what it is, he’s going to need his Medicare card, and his credit card, and his debit card. We had these and a few other less important things, and we managed to find him on Facebook, and indirectly reached him that way. Turns out that he and his wide were due to come through Letterkenny, so they met us this morning. <\/p>\n

He’s taller than he looks in his driver’s license photo. And his wife said “Oh, I’d hug you both, but I have a cold.” Nice people, seems like, we chatted with them for a few moments. His was one of those slim wallets, sticks on the back of his phone. As best he could figure it just fell off when he pulled the phone out of his pocket at that beach. When one of his family members, because of our Facebook messaging, caught up with him last night he hadn’t yet realized it was missing. So, I assume, he was never going to find the thing. Maybe we saved them a little bit of heartache. Anyway, as soon as I passed it to him he handed it to his wife, who put it in her purse. They’d talked about this. <\/p>\n

Turns out this isn’t the first time this has happened. Once, on a trip to Virginia several years ago something similar happened and someone happened to find it while they were nearby. Tim and his wife definitely talked about this last night. <\/p>\n

Anyway, they thanked us and thanked us and went on their way. <\/p>\n

We had a nice little Irish breakfast — which is a thing I think I could say every day and be perfectly happy — and then set out for more fun in the sun. The woman at the front desk of the hotel said yesterday was the first time they’ve seen the sun this year. There are tradeoffs, as we learn, and sunlight is probably going to win out over breakfast.<\/p>\n

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Our first stop today was Ballymastocker Strand, on the Knockalla coast. This is regarded as one of the finest golden strands in Ireland. From here, you get nice views of Ballymastocker Beach, over Portsalon Beach & the Fanad Peninsula. <\/p>\n

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Down there are crystal clear waters, which you can swim starting in June. People also surf, kayak and fish here, or just enjoy nice walks on the sandy beach in front of sand dunes that are home to rabbits and birds. That beach always shows up most beautiful lists. And Taylor Swift is been there! OMG! Also, it was a location for the movie “The Secret of Roan Inish,” a film grounded in local folklore of seals that can shed their skins to become human. <\/p>\n

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Nearby was the scene of the dramatic wreck of the HMS Saldanha, a small British ship in regular service in this area. She was on patrol in December of 1811 and got caught in a storm. The 36-gun frigate floundered into the bay and all 264 of her crew were killed, or died in the icy cold waters. Only a parrot, the captain’s bird, and a dog survived.<\/p>\n

Right along the beach in the background is a fine little golf course. Who can play the game with a beach like that just off to the side? I’d be hooking and slicing every shot because I couldn’t keep my head down for the views. <\/p>\n

If you swim out from the beach a brisk 2.4 mile swim would put you on the shore on the opposite side of the bay. But if you turned left you’d be in the North Atlantic. <\/p>\n

We’re not swimming today, but we are seeing some more of these incredible views. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We woke up in Letterkenny this morning, which is a good thing, since that’s where we went to sleep last night. Our room is right on the corner of the building. The quiet road we came in on turned into a busy highway first thing this morning, so we were up a little earlier than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14,62,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573898816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-friday","category-ireland","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573898816"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573898819,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898816\/revisions\/573898819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573898816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573898816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573898816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}