About us and the boat

About us and the boat:

We were lucky enough to retire early at the start of 2013 so we could head off and "live the dream" on board our Nordhavn 47 Trawler Yacht. The idea is to see some of the planet, at a slow 6 - 7 knots pace. There are no fixed goals or timings, we just had a plan to visit Scotland and then probably the Baltic before heading south.

The idea is to visit the nicer areas in these latitudes before heading south for warmer weather. If we like somewhere, we will stay for a while. If not, we will just move on. So, for the people who love forward planning and targets, this might seem a little relaxed!

If anyone else is contemplating a trawler yacht life, maybe our experiences will be enough to make you think again, or maybe do it sooner then you intended!

The boat is called Rockland and she is built for long distance cruising and a comfortable life on board too. If you want to see more about trawler yachts and the Nordhavn 47 in particular, there is a link to the manufacturers website in our "useful stuff" section. For the technically minded, there is a little info and pictures of the boat and equipment in the same section

Regards

Richard and June

Saturday 8 June 2013

Northern Ireland – falling back in love with it?

Having arrived pretty early on Friday morning, we had some time to explore the town of Bangor and get some exercise too.  The welcome into the marina was wonderful, as alluded to in the last post. Calling them up, the man patiently explained exactly where to berth, even down to the colour of the caps on the post on pontoon H. Awesome service.

We reversed into the berth rather neatly although we say it ourselves (the Nordhavn 47 only has a walkway one side so we try to berth starboard side to. Makes getting off so much easier.) Before we had even tied up, two locals who were en route to their boat had started chatting. It really reminded the Captain of his Northern Ireland experiences when covering the area for BMW. Within a few minutes, we knew about them, the best places to walk, eat, see and of course that he was a speed / motorcycle freak.(Remember that most NI people are petrolheads, hence  the captain felt so at home here.)  Another 2 minutes and we had heard about the man’s bike exploits and history too.

After finally getting the boat moored properly we hit the marina office.  The lady booked us in, handed over a mound of useful paperwork, explained where the interesting bits of the town were on the map she provided, learned that we planned to go into Belfast and so gave us a train timetable and advice on where to alight for what and what to see there too. Then came the “previous visitors have liked x and y in Belfast, if you go anywhere and like it, please let me know so I can pass it on to future visitors too”. Anything else we needed? Sure it was a nice day and please enjoy the town and marina facilities and and…

It was a flashback to the many NI visits in 1986-8. People who like talking, love sharing their info and views and generally have time for such things too. So unlike much of southern England and so refreshing.

Phil, the previously mentioned friend who lived in NI and is currently the Nordhavn Europe man described the town of Bangor as “past it’s best”. Lovely phrase. We thought that compared to Holyhead it was fine! At least the main street is buzzing with people and alive.

The walk from Bangor towards Holywood along the waterside was great. Owing to the temperature and sun, it felt like a Canary Islands coastal promenade somehow:




On Saturday we took the train to Belfast and explored the old dock and shipbuilding area (now known as the Titanic quarter – thank you Mr DiCaprio for saving the local tourist industry!) We really don't get the whole Titanic thing but it seems that many others do so here is the new Titanic visitor centre – rather posh:



Restored and in dry dock -  the SS Nomadic, the tender that was used to ferry passengers out to the White Star liners from Cherbourg. She took the first and second class people out to the Titanic for that ill-fated voyage. As you can see, they also had a better tender than us (see the Guernsey post re the Barclay brothers for photographic evidence…):




















An old Gaffer event was on – no, not boring people of our age pretending to be important. Actually it was lots of gaff rigged sailing boats that were en route around the UK to raise money for charity:



Walking the river, we bumped in to the Belfast version of the Oxford / Cambridge boat race. Not quite as many spectators but all very serious stuff:


When the Captain was a regular work visitor, there was still a “Royal Ulster Constabulary”, soldiers on the streets in armoured Land Rovers and lots of checkpoints. He was booked into the Europa hotel twice but only stayed once. That was because it got blown up a few days before his planned second visit. Famous as the most bombed hotel in Europe with 28 bomb attacks during “The Troubles” it was great to see it with a complete façade, no big security fence, checkpoint etc:



That goes for the whole of Belfast where it is clear a lot of regeneration cash has been spent. So nice to be back in the city and free to walk around and enjoy the lovely buildings and ambience. City Hall is a good example:


Finally, one of the iconic Belfast sights – Samson and Goliath,  the two huge yellow cranes at Harland and Wolff the shipbuilding yard. They were always impressive when you flew into the old harbour airport (now the “George Best City airport” of course) and you saw them above you!  



The open question – why was the railway station at Helens Bay ( a pretty small place!) crawling with police as we passed through on the way to Belfast and again on the way back many hours later? Any ideas?

The bad news was that on our return we found an inebriated Patrick sitting in the aft cockpit in the sun.  This is bad news on so many counts:
- Can social services take him away from us for such poor parenting?
-He has consumed some of our wine stock that has to be lugged back from the shops by the trolley shopper adverse captain.
- being inebriated in the aft cockpit is the crew’s job.






Overall Belfast was a great place to visit. Might well go back soon if the weather “blows up”.