On 5 April Essex waited at Hilbre, an island at the mouth of the river Dee, for favourable winds in foggy conditions. A week later he sailed from Beaumaris after impatiently riding over Penmaen Mawr - ""the worst way and in the extremest wet that I have endured"" - while bidding his ships to meet him. After a violent passage he reached Dublin on 15 April and was sworn into office the same day, when the Archbishop of Dublin preached a notable sermon.