Windswept in Bangor

You saw what was coming from the last post. Guess what - it arrived. We had a plethora of lines to keep us attached to the pontoon whilst the wind tried its best to take us over to the breakwater. The lines won, fortunately.

We occupied ourselves by hiding inside the boat and waiting until the wind and rain had died down. That took about 36 hours though and lasted into the captain's big birthday. It did not dampen things though, and we managed to walk to an excellent dinner with Ken, Debbie and Annika at the rather splendid royal Ulster Yacht club. You might have seen pictures of it in here before but just in case:





The clubhouse is just beautiful inside and out. The food was very very good too as was the company. We even had a bottle of fizz delivered to the table courtesy of Tina, the Isle of Wight resident, who had sneakily arranged it. The Captain looked suitably happy even before drinking it:

Just a bit wrinkly - must be an age thing. Debbie is most artistic, some of her pottery has starred in prior blog posts and she had produced a lovely birthday card showing the lighthouse at the entrance to Belfast Lough:

so all in all not a bad day. For more information on the lighthouse have a look at   Wikipedia entry

The rain was drying up and the wind dropping so we did manage to vernture out, as far as the delights of Asda and the captain did a little maintenance. The hose clips on the new fresh water pump needed tightening to stop a weep (stressful job) and we found that our trip across from England had cost more than we thought:

A blown bulb from the 24v engine room lights. Ouch.

Although the wind was stopping, the rain was determined to keep us company. so nice of it. Between the heavy showers we did manage a quick shopping run for food and to say hi to other folks we know here. A most sociable place. Plan A was to head to North Wales and hang out in Conwy for a while and explore that area. Only Conwy was full. Looks like we need to head up into Nicolaland for a while and risk the wrath of any rabid SNP supporters who think that we will be importing covid or bad English habits. This was the welcome at Glasgow central station a while ago:

Maybe Campbeltown will be friendlier - if there is any space for us that is.