Bangor to Troon

The fun times in Bangor had to end. Why oh why did the tide times dictate that it would end very early on a Sunday morning? It was the weekend of the "Sea Bangor" festival so as we headed out there were a few visitor attractions to admire (or otherwise):

We were happy enough though as the new little switch in the flybridge throttle controller was working just fine. Long may it continue.

Anchored off the harbour was the Hebridean Princess, the old ferry that has become a rather exclusive little cruise ship. As the Bangor harbourmaster told us, you know how expensive it is when you realise that you have to wade through the pile on the carpets:

We guessed that the tourists on board were sleeping off the excesses from the evening before as things were very quiet:

The cruise that they were on was shown on the website as costing £12k per person for a week. I think you would need to drink a lot to justify that price so we crept quietly past her so as not to upset any hangovers.

Heading into the North Channel there were several ferries and other cruise liners heading into Belfast and picking up their pilots:

We blame Ken for the liner epidemic.  His shipping company brought the first one into the city and things have snowballed. 

We were bound for Troon which is a simple straight line trip which takes you close to the Ailsa Craig. If you don't know it, then it is a lump of rock in a most odd position off the coast of Scotland. There was a hint of mist hanging around it as we passed by:

The trip was pretty calm, the wind only picked up as we approached Troon harbour and had to dodge a few fishing markers. Our timing was pretty perfect, we avoided having to hang off due to the departure of the ferry to Arran and headed straight into the harbour. Cue another lifeboat picture as we passed through to the marina:

As you can see, the route is pretty straight and we had no need to deviate for anything, bar the Hebridean Princess as we left Bangor:

60 odd nautical miles and 9.5 hours later we berthed on a nice big hammerhead in Troon. All good. The plan was to spend a few nights there and then head to Largs where we'd booked our annual lift out. 

Maintenance news:

We had some. The captain had nipped up the stern gland because it was dripping too much following the long run up the Irish sea. It was dripping at a rate of one per second or so and making the bilge pump kick in far too often. That had been reduced to one every 5 seconds or so whilst in Bangor. Guess what, out to sea it dripped far less and on one of the routine engine room checks, the stern gland was running nearly 20 degrees hotter than normal. So, it got freed off a little whilst underway. Not a huge job but much needed. Might be time to repack the thing.