Chilling in Bangor

As we've said before, Bangor feels like a second home somehow. Even more so this year as we saw the boats belonging to folks we know arriving back into the marina. Here is Keith's yacht Scotia:

Keith and Ingrid seem very focussed on Bailey the dog who takes all the attention in a very relaxed way:

Ken wanted to turn his Hardy around on her berth but decided that he might as well go for a little run out to sea as well:

A good job that the sun was not out or the shine from the hull would have blinded the camera. One sparkly boat.

The crew got heavily into baking mode. Ginger loaf, then granary bread:

I have a feeling that if we stay here too long we will not be able to walk very far.

Sitting in the saloon, admiring the rain running down the windows, we spotted the local IRB bringing in a yacht and dropping her onto the berth astern of us:

Then we learned that the yacht is owned by the lifeboat coxswain. We do hope that it was a training exercise or he might never live down the humiliation. Perhaps there is something going on here as the following night, we witnessed the marina workboat towing another yacht to her berth from the harbour entrance:

Wonder if there is a "Bangor triangle" for boat engines around here. Or someone selling dodgy diesel? (Actually that happened in the marina a while ago but we will not spill any beans.....) 

We unknowingly took advantage of the government "eat out to help out" by having an outside coffee at Cafe Brazilia with George, another boat owner, which was most pleasant and ended up as quite a bargain too. Thank you Mr Sunak. Raiding Asda for some essentials was instructive and worrying. The "wear a mask in shops" rule had only recently been introduced in Northern Ireland and folks seemed to be struggling with it. Big time. The concept of covering the nose as well as the mouth seems too hard. For some folks even wearing a mask seemed too hard. No wonder the R rate here is heading north far too rapidly for comfort.

You haven't heard from our pesky crewmember Patrick the penguin recently. Well, this time he seems to have excelled himself. Colin the ex BA captain, ex Lighting fighter pilot, ex RN helicopter pilot and fellow Nordhavn owner sent us this:

Sure enough Partick looked very crestfallen when he was returned to the boat. Martin (another Nordhavn proper chap whom you have met via these ramblings before) commented on how lucky Patrick was, saying that if he had gone walkabout in the USA the cops would probably have shot him. Only the black bits mind you.

One thing that really impressed us about Bangor was the focus on hand sanitising. It even extended to the pontoon mounted taps:

Shame that the local townsfolk seem less aware of the risks.

Why did we stay chilling here? Well, this forecast wind strength had something to do with it:

You can figure out that red is not good. The wave heights looked equally unappealing:

Red means 6 metres plus by the way. Not tempting at all. For folks who like words not pictures:

So, we rigged extra fenders and mooring lines, raided the shop for food and hunkered down to ride out the storm. OK, it is officially a severe gale, we exaggerate a teeny bit by saying storm.