One hell of a row

The fuchsia blossoms drop silently on to the windscreen of our car parked outside our rented house, the first sign that the summer is past its best. It's August and already you can sense the change in the air in the brown of the mown meadows, the limp and tattered edges to the leaves of the chestnuts, the ash and the oak trees that surround us. And in the blossoms, falling in a drift of red along every roadside.

We've been coming to the Skibbereen area for the past 10 years or so, over-wintering our 16-foot gaff-rigged boat in Hegarty's yard at Oldcourt. We've sailed a number of boats through these waters, including an Enterprise dinghy, light to the touch and responsive to the slightest shift in wind. Another dinghy, a GP 14, was slightly heavier and more stable, letting us try our hand at sailing further, out through the narrows that separate the mainland from the northern tip of Sherkin island.

There, the tides race and seals lift their sleek black heads above the rills and eddies to watch us pass, while the ferry from Cape Clear rears up behind like a great green Leviathan from the deep. Then it's out towards the islands which lie like stones flung from the hand of a giant into the sparkling waters of Roaringwater Bay, landing on our favourite, Skeam East, with its white-sand beaches and turquoise water. There are cows chewing the cud on the bracken-covered headland and a fierce white billy-goat who shakes his horns, pawing the ground and urinating into his own face to warn us off.

Then five or so years ago we acquired Tamarisk, an Oysterman 16, bowsprit, gaff rig, looking for all the world like a miniature sailing ship. Seaworthy, fast and very pretty. Now we could go further afield; across the bay to Schull or even to Crookhaven. Cape Clear, the Fastnet lighthouse on the horizon a westerly reference for tacking the prevailing wind, and the little inlet at Barloge eastwards up the coast, were now also within our reach. From here we could paddle up the rapids in our rubber dinghy to gain entrance to Lough Hyne with its mixture of salt and fresh water, and its sea urchins and lobsters.

Here we'd sit in the small boat, eating fresh tuna and bread bought in Field's supermarket and slices of fruit cake from Skibbereen's wonderful country market, washed down with mugs of tea from the Thermos.

It's the smells that are so special always. The light sweetness of the honeysuckle threaded through the hedgerows, the stink of the mud flats laid bare at low tide in the lower reaches of the Ilen River, the fresh pine resin from the trees on Lough Hyne hill. And, above all else, the smell of the sea, carried inland from the Atlantic, salt-saturated winds scorching and scarring trees and bushes and flattening all in their path, reminding us fairweather visitors what the real west Cork can be like.

And all the time autumn's breath is on the nape of your neck. A slight coolness to raise the hairs on the forearms and make toes, bare in sandals, curl up. But before that there are other pleasures to be savoured. And first and foremost is the Baltimore regatta. It's held on Bank Holiday Monday, just one of a series of regattas all around west Cork. It's a day when the yachties and the foodies and the gangs of visitors from Dublin and all points east seem to melt away from the Square outside Bushe's Bar.

It is a west Cork day for the supporters of the teams who will compete in the annual rowing races - eight, usually. Boats from Castletownsend, Schull, Rosscarbery, Sherkin, Galley Head, Kilmacsimon, Ring and Myross compete, in teams of two and four - men, women and even children - rowing out into the bay.

The course is a long one; 1,000 metres each way for the seniors, 600m for the juniors. A hell of a row for anyone, particularly if there's a wind blowing, pushing up the swell and leaving the waves with stiff peaked tops, like beaten egg white, which stretch the muscles of the rowers to their utmost. The crowd push forward to the edge of the pier and I'm among them. The boats line up like cranky racehorses, edging forward, pulling back, their coxes struggling to get them to the start already under way. Then the gun sounds and they're off.

I scan the rowers to see if I can recognise anyone. Mary Anne O'Neill from the Oldcourt Inn is there in the Myross boat. It's a year-round commitment, she tells me.

She does weights and the rowing machine in winter and five nights' training in summer. The crowd begins to shout for their favourites, but the wind whips the words from our lips. Do the rowers hear? They don't respond: all their energy and concentration is focused on the great stretch of water ahead, and getting to the marker buoys to make the clean turn that will bring them into the lead. The boats get smaller and smaller as they pull away from the pier.

The shouting dies down. The crowds begin to chat and gossip. So and so's son is getting married, someone's family have come back from England for the holidays. There's cattle sold, a good price got. Even more to the point, a site has been sold. Children clamour to be lifted on to shoulders. I use the binoculars and pick up the boats as they turn. They look as if they're in slow motion out there, wallowing in the swell, the rowers struggling to gain control and bring the bows of the long, narrow skiffs around. And then they're on their way home and the cheering rises to a pitch.

The man from Galley Head next to me is hoarse with excitement. I shout too, all sense of making a show of myself gone as the gap widens between the first two boats and the rest. It's close, it's very close and as they get nearer tears rise up and fill my eyes, then spill down my cheeks. And then it's over and the rowers slump exhausted, their heads and shoulders bowed, oars dropping from rowlocks, bodies spent as the summer itself. I wipe my eyes surreptitiously, feeling suddenly foolish, but no one notices.

A cloud covers the sun, and for a moment the landscape is wintry. I turn away, past the fortune-teller's tent, and the swing boats on the green, up the steps to Bushe's and hot whiskeys, then on to La Jolie Brise for Youen Jacob's best pizzas. And afterwards when the stars are so close you could almost reach out and touch them, there's music and dancing and pints in the Oldcourt.

And when the salt wind whips in again from the Atlantic and the sun slips down to the tropic of Capricorn, there are memories to be taken out and savoured. Until next year.

Julie Parsons's latest novel, The Courtship Gift, is out in paperback, published by Townhouse, price £6.99. Her new thriller, Eager to Please, is out in October, price £9.99

The Baltimore Regatta runs next Sunday and Monday. Races start at 1 p.m.

In Memories next Wednesday, novelist and playwright Eilis Ni Dhuibhne recalls the happiest of family holidays in raw bungalows and damp cottages