We were moored in Ardglass, a little longer than we would of liked as there is very little to do close to the Marina. One of our fellow travellers had brought his golf clubs and there was a excellent golf course near by, which was holding a championship for the youth of Northern Ireland, so he was very happy, but for us, we just used our extended stay to catch up with the washing and cleaning of Salty Lass.
Luckily the weather was not too bad and we could leave the marina and venture out and explore again. The manoeuvring around the marina was very difficult, because of windage, but Beverley, did an excellent job as usual.
The sail from Ardglass, was pleasant, with the wind and tide acting in our favour, so that we had a smooth sail. Somewhere along the way, a bird took refuge on Salty Lass, he looked as if his wing was hurt, but after a few seconds I realised that he was fine and he would be alright after a break. We timed our passage beautifully and we made Donaghadee Sound with the tide in our favour. On the map, the buoyage looked quite tight, but in reality for a sailing yacht of our size, there was plenty of room.
By the time we had sailed into Belfast Loch, it was getting quite late and Groomsport was having a fireworks display, which Beverley said was in her honour. We navigated the Belfast Loch quite easily but getting into Bangor Marina was quite difficult as the lights were masked out by all the other lights on the shore line. By taking our time and going real slow, we managed it. Its good to have another set of eyes as we could discuss lights and agree on which lights were the important ones.
Once we were moored up, we were quite happy to get some sleep.
The next day, as well as checking in we decided that we would head off to Belfast, taking the train into town. There are quite a few great places to see in Belfast, but one of the places that I really wanted to check out was the Titanic exhibition.
The Titanic was such a huge ship, but it is only one fifth of the size of a modern cruise ship. What got me about the layout more than anything else was the size of the lifeboats. They were so tiny in comparison to the ship and they were clearly inadequate.
After the titanic exhibition, we walked around town, stopping off at the local pub, where we had a well deserved drink.
