Tuesday 5th February 12:00
Continuing stormy weather is preventing any further moves to salvage the fishing trawler Celestial Dawn which foundered at the mouth of Dingle Harbour on Saturday night with up to 39 tonnes of diesel oil on board. This morning a container load of equipment arrived down from Dublin including sophisticated floating booms designed to contain any further oil spillage, as the small boom currently in place is not able to cope with the rise and fall of the tide. Ropes and hawsers are now available to secure the boat to anchoring points which will be dug on the clifftop. Commercial divers are expected on site today to inspect the situation, but they cannot enter the boat until she is secured, and nothing much is likely to happen today as the westerly gales continue.
This morning at first light there was still a smell of diesel around the stricken vessel and a slight sheen on the water but the pollution appears to be localised and the dolphin was swimming around as normal by the channel markers.
Many thanks to Dingle Coastguards for keeping us informed. We should also mention that all parties involved in dealing with this incident have been pulling together in a very impressive way and we are very hopeful of a satisfactory outcome.
Graham Timmins
graham@irishdolphins.com
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