Day trip to Bangor

We are thoroughly enjoying Northern Ireland.   The Giant's Causeway was truly amazing and we also took a bus ride along the beautiful northern coast.   Great beaches, magnificent cliffs and rolling green hills behind.   Quite different from the Scottish Islands only a few miles in our wake.

We took an extra day to enjoy the area, mostly because of a southerly near-gale being forecast.  Of course this didn't materialise as we didn't actually go to sea and so we moved down to the quaint village of Glenarm on Saturday afternoon.   This being the 'Twelfth week of July" as the Ulster folk put it, everywhere is crowded for the bank holiday weekend, and we had to 'raft up' to another boat on arrival.  This is a less common practice these days, but no real problem.  Very shortly afterwards another boat literally drifted in with an engine failure and we had to get lines to them and tie them up alongside us for the night.

The bad news (particularly for them) was that we had to get up at 4 am in order to catch the big tide southwards to Belfast and a fair bit of un-knitting needed to be done so that Goldfinch could leave and the other boat safely made fast.

The early morning trip to the pleasant harbour of Bangor (NI) was uneventful and we are currently parked in their large marina.  Possibly uniquely, their 'facilities' include hot baths which are very welcome.

Mike eschews his organic muesli for an Ulster fry

Debbie, who as well as being ship's photographer and ace helmsperson, has been ably contributing in the galley.  As she leaves for home on Tuesday,there is a possibility that Mike's health food regime may get re-established. However, even he has the occasional fall from grace.