Ardglass
After our enforced longer than intended stay in Bangor we were up bright and early on Sunday morning and slipping out of Bangor Marina at 5:30am. Now to some of you this will seem stupidly early but for me it was a victory! The route we had to take took us inside a small group of islands called the Copeland Isles which sit just at the south east exit of Belfast Lough. The tide races through the narrow sound between the islands and the mainland reaching up to 5 knots so you really need to be going in the same direction as the tide as fighting it is virtually impossible. The local wisdom is that the best way to make maximum use of the south going tide is to leave Bangor marina an hour before low water push the last of the incoming tidal stream which is fairly slack at this time and then make use of the full 6 hours of the ebb tide going south. This all sounds great until you realise that on the day we were leaving low water was 4:20 am - there was no way that I was getting up for a 3:30 leave so 5:30 was quite a victory!
As we eased out of the marina we were joined by another boat who was clearly going in the same direction as us and it was good to follow a local boat through the slightly tricky sound between the islands. Chugging out across the lough the sun began to rise and this was one of the best sunrises we had seen in a long while - indeed it was one of the only sunrises we had seen in a long while!
The sunshine didn't last long but at least it didn't rain!
So we continued south to a small fishing village called Ardglass - somewhere that most non sailing folk have never heard of and probably would never visit! Arriving on a Sunday afternoon we were met with the usual problem that there was no HM around and we couldn't raise anyone on the VHF or the phone. Ardglass is a community project run marina where a group of local boat owners have got together and developed some moorings in a disused part of the harbour. It is a really useful staging post on the Irish sea coast and according to the local press is bringing in a lot of money for the local community but is dependent largely on the HM or local boat owners. Despite not being able to contact anyone we motored into the harbour and saw lots of vacant spots whereupon one of the local berth holders waved us into a suitable berth and helped us tie up. As we chatted to him it became apparent that they were having a few problems as the HM had been admitted to hospital and they were having to try and look after things in his absence. We were given all the various codes and then asked to put our berthing fee into an envelope and push it through the door - the honesty box system is alive and well!
Ardglass is a funny sort of place - basically it appeared to be closed! The fishing harbour was full of fishing boats and there were quite a lot of people about but nothing else - even the pub was shut and showed no signs of opening up!
We spent a quiet night in Ardglass and then up early for another 6:30am start to make the most of the south going tide the following day.
As we eased out of the marina we were joined by another boat who was clearly going in the same direction as us and it was good to follow a local boat through the slightly tricky sound between the islands. Chugging out across the lough the sun began to rise and this was one of the best sunrises we had seen in a long while - indeed it was one of the only sunrises we had seen in a long while!
So we continued south to a small fishing village called Ardglass - somewhere that most non sailing folk have never heard of and probably would never visit! Arriving on a Sunday afternoon we were met with the usual problem that there was no HM around and we couldn't raise anyone on the VHF or the phone. Ardglass is a community project run marina where a group of local boat owners have got together and developed some moorings in a disused part of the harbour. It is a really useful staging post on the Irish sea coast and according to the local press is bringing in a lot of money for the local community but is dependent largely on the HM or local boat owners. Despite not being able to contact anyone we motored into the harbour and saw lots of vacant spots whereupon one of the local berth holders waved us into a suitable berth and helped us tie up. As we chatted to him it became apparent that they were having a few problems as the HM had been admitted to hospital and they were having to try and look after things in his absence. We were given all the various codes and then asked to put our berthing fee into an envelope and push it through the door - the honesty box system is alive and well!
Ardglass is a funny sort of place - basically it appeared to be closed! The fishing harbour was full of fishing boats and there were quite a lot of people about but nothing else - even the pub was shut and showed no signs of opening up!
We spent a quiet night in Ardglass and then up early for another 6:30am start to make the most of the south going tide the following day.
Comments
Post a Comment