Current location: Albert basin, Newry, Northern Ireland (in a canal, outside an enormous shopping centre)
Places visited since last post: Lamlash harbour, Isle of Arran (Scotland), Glenarm, Bangor, Killough Bay and Ardglass (N Ireland)
Greetings from Northern Ireland, where we find ourselves in a slightly extraordinary, unexpected place. We are moored up in Albert Basin, two miles inland up a canal, in the heart of a busy Northern Irish city called Newry, directly opposite the entrance to an enormous shopping centre called "the Quays". We didn't plan to end up here; it just sort of happened. We left Ardglass, a little harbour up the coast from here at first light yesterday, bound for Howth - a passage south of about 50 miles, which would take us around 10 hours. There was no wind at all when we set off, and although the forecast from the previous evening warned of strong to gale force winds, they were not expected until the following night, long after we would arrive in Howth. However, when the coastguard read the morning's forecast over the radio, it seemed that the wind was now expected to come sooner, with a possibility of gale force 8 winds by the afternoon. Such is the peril of setting off before hearing the morning's forecast... We were having a lovely fast sail, Snow Goose was in her element, and we probably would have made it to Howth just fine, but the wind was already freshening by the hour, and taking into account the limitations of our crew, we took the safe decision and put into the next sensible port.
This is how we came to enter Carlingford Lough; a vast 10 mile inlet on the east coast of Ireland, which marks the divide between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Carlingford Marina is situated on the south side of the Lough, and the pilot book describes that the shelter as inadequate in a northerly gale (which of course is what was forecast..), with waves reported to breach the breakwaters. We didn't think that sounded particularly peaceful, so we headed as far inland as possible to Warrenpoint, which is basically a massive shipping port, but the town quay is described as having a few pontoons which can accommodate yachts. On radioing the harbourmaster to ask for a spot, he informed us that there was no space on the town pontoons. Everywhere that we have been recently has had masses of space, so we were completely taken by surprise, and were fast running out of options. He told us we could tie up on the inside of the harbour breakwater, but we didn't really fancy being against a breakwater during a gale, so we tried our third and final option... Just upriver from Warrenpoint was a lock leading to a canal, which our pilot book said could be opened for visiting yachts by prior arrangement with the local tourist office; 24-48 hours notice was suggested. I called the tourist office, and although helpful, the lady sounded pretty dubious, but she agreed to give me the lock keeper's mobile number. Unbelievably, we were in luck! Two yachts had just gone through, and Noel the lovely lock keeper said he could wait until we got there about an hour later. Once through the lock, we motored three miles up a flat canal to our destination, where we have had perfect shelter through the gale last night and today. We heard that a yacht was dismasted out at sea this afternoon; there is barely a breath of wind where we are. We have had a lot of fun in Newry, including an educational walking tour of the old city and docks yesterday (led by me from a leaflet I picked up in the tourist office), a buffet supper in a chinese restaurant last night, and a bus trip to Slieve Gullion Country Park today, where there was a festival of food and music. We are booked to go back through the lock tomorrow morning, with a better forecast (so far...), so will try once again to head south to Howth.
We seem to have spent quite a bit of time waiting for gales to pass since the last post. We spent no fewer that four nights on the scottish island of Arran, waiting for the wind to settle sufficiently that we could make the crossing to the east coast of Ireland. This was particularly frustrating because there was a high pressure system sitting over the south of the UK, where we knew everyone was basking in glorious sunshine and blue sky, whilst on the Isle of Arran we could not venture out without jumpers, hats and waterproofs. It was cold and wet, and ironically it didn't even seem to be the right Arran for buying woolly jumpers (a mystery which we have not yet investigated further, but no doubt a quick google search would clear it up for us..). We were in a harbour called Lamlash, or "La-lash" as Eloise insisted on calling it, safely tied up to a very smart visitors mooring. The pilot book was not wrong when it described "fierce squalls" coming off the mountains in strong winds, and at times it was so windy on the mooring that it was hard to sleep because of the noise. At other times, there seemed to be no wind at all, but then our lovely deep slumbers were broken by Snow Goose's hull banging against her mooring buoy... However, on the plus side, it was a short dinghy trip ashore, and we were able to leave Snow Goose on her mooring all day without worrying about her, which was a great improvement on some of our Irish gales. We caught the bus to the Auchrannie Spa Hotel, which I cannot recommend highly enough, should you ever find yourself gale-bound on Arran. Angus and I both treated ourselves to a massage - which, having slept on bunk cushions for the past two months, was much needed, never mind the physical toils of yachting (worse for Angus than me..). We splashed and swam for hours with Eloise in both the kids' and grown-up pools, as well as using the steam room, sauna etc. We all had long, hot showers both before and after swimming, just because we could, and for Eloise I am fairly sure it was her first shower in at least two weeks... After treating ourselves to a really good lunch in the restaurant, we headed for the kids' playbarn, with coffee and Wifi for grown-ups, before catching the bus back to the boat. It was all we could do to stop ourselves checking in to the hotel for the night! The following day we circumnavigated the island by bus, stopping at the Arran whisky distillery for a tour, which Angus was delighted with because we failed to get a tour of the Bushmills when we visited. We could not have dreamt up a better couple of rainy, windy shore days - thank you, Arran for a great stay.
From Arran we crossed to Glenarm in Northern Ireland, where we had a quick midnight until 6am sleep before continuing south with the next fair tide to Bangor, just east of Belfast. It is not fun arriving in places in the dark, but sometimes it is unavoidable. We had called ahead to the marina manager in
Glenarm, who confirmed there was space available, and told us where to go when we arrived. He also warned us about the "poorly lit" (a.k.a completely unlit) fish farm just off the marina entrance. We had no wind the whole way from Arran, but just as we reached Glenarm it started blowing quite hard, which made mooring in a strange marina in the dark quite tricky. The main danger, however, of motoring close to shore in darkness is the risk of getting caught on fishing gear, none of which is lit. We were almost at the marina entrance and I was tying on ropes and fenders, when I spotted a couple of floating footballs in a net (a makeshift buoy) go past our bow. Luckily Angus heard and reacted instantly to my shout of "Go into neutral!" and we didn't get caught up on the rope. We avoided the area where the fish farm was indicated on the chart by as far as we could, but were still pretty alarmed the following morning as we left, when we saw the vast expanse of sea that the fartodo vere. It was seriously huge! Surely if a small anchored yacht has to show a light all night, then a massive fish farm full of someone's livelihood should too?...
Bangor was really a fantastic stop for us for a number of reasons; the sun shone for the whole two days, there was a washing machine in the marina (our first encounter with laundry for two weeks), we visited the Titanic Experience in Belfast, but mainly because we were shown wonderful hospitality by Irish friends. Back in July, we had met two couples from Bangor on the Gathering Cruise, who gave us strict instructions to call when we reached their home town. Both picked us up and had us to dinner at almost no notice. I can hardly describe how excited we were at the prospect of sitting on comfy sofas, in houses, two nights running, at this stage of our trip . The last time we went into a friend's house was in Falmouth, almost two months ago. It made us vow to try offer the same hospitality to others far from home whenever the opportunity arises. Eloise remembered all our friends from the Cruise, and they were so kind to her, giving her sticker books, pencils, sweeties, and even pocket money!
The Titanic Experience in Belfast had been recommended to us by a number of people and was a great day out. The museum was incredibly well thought-out, giving a fascinating insight into the factory-dominated, workhouse era of Belfast in the times of linen production and export, before moving on to shipbuilding, the construction and subsequent sinking of Titanic, and the finding of the wreck. It took a team of five people to hammer in each and every rivet of her hull, with sparks of hot metal flying as they worked, and no thought of any facial, eye or ear protection... There were reconstructed examples of first, second and third class cabins, and an amazing 3D audiovisual display which showed all the different areas of the ship, from the engine rooms to the wheelhouse. Then there were the ship to ship morse code messages, which warned Titanic of the many icebergs in the area; warnings which were completely ignored in the false belief that she was unsinkable, invincible... and so on she pushed at full speed in pitch darkness. The distress messages were played out in a darkened room as an image of Titanic sank beneath the sea on the screen in front of us. Eloise insisted on watching it over and over again to try and get her head around the story. Having seen a tall ship sink on the rocks, she is no stranger to the concept of shipwrecks, but she is used to everyone being rescued, so we did our best to gloss over the fact that two thirds of those on board didn't survive.. She was in a bit of a muddle about exactly which ship hit an iceberg, and when we asked her what the name was, she would say "OneDLL". (This is the name of Rosie's boat in the Clipper Round the World Race, which we all sincerely hope will not be going near any icebergs..)
We plan to be home in less than three weeks, so although our thoughts are beginning to turn to normal life, we are trying to savour every moment of our trip - even the cold, wet, windy ones... Thanks for reading if you have managed to get this far, keep in touch, and let us know if you are in Cornwall or Devon in the last couple of weeks in September.
Fair winds from all of us on the good ship Snow Goose.
Xxx
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