When 83-year-old Margaret Berry Cusick set sail from Rossmoney Harbour, Co Mayo, last week she was fulfilling a life's dream.
On board Peter McDonagh's passenger rigid inflatable, the Seaventure, were three generations of her extended family. They were visiting Margaret's ancestral home, Inisturc Beag, one of the tiny maze of islands that clutter the inner waters of Clew Bay. It was the home of her family until the mid-1940s.
While Margaret was born in Cleveland, Ohio, she returned to the island with her parents and siblings in 1925. Her widowed grandmother had requested that her son come back and farm the family homestead, which comprised half of the 59-acre island.
However, Inisturc Beag's proximity to the mainland didn't always guarantee accessibility, and during winter storms the children were often unable to attend their mainland school.
A difficult livelihood eked out with part-time fishing and the selling of cattle at mainland fairs, in Newport and Westport, frustrated her parents, who had already been seduced once by the prospect of golden opportunities in the US.
It was Margaret's father's American citizenship that saved him during one of a series of raids by the Black and Tans. His brother was forced at gunpoint to ride a wild bull before being imprisoned. In 1931 the Berry family packed their bags and emigrated once again to Cleveland.
Having returned only once since in 70 years, last Tuesday's trip was not only poignant for the Berrys. For Dutch couple Helma and Bob Hermans, who bought half the island in 1988, it was also a significant day.
Hosting a special lunch in their solar-powered house, they, too, are about to leave the island and move to sunnier climes. While their circumstances are different - they run a scientific writing and consultancy business - it is the winter isolation and inaccessibility that have also driven them away.
That's difficult to comprehend, perhaps, on a balmy, sunsoaked afternoon when 59 acres of paradise is your garden, a glistening bay of Faberge islands is your vista and a paella of freshly harvested vegetables and shellfish is your culinary delight.
But then Helma and Bob had spent five years living on their yacht, the Fint, while building their wonderful home.
In the still late afternoon, as the Berry family boarded the Seaventure for a brief trip to their forebears' graves on nearby Inishdaff, the Hermans' yacht, the Fint, stood to attention above the highwater mark, ready to sail south to Spain.