Peel to Bangor

Juniper sailing round GB
Gordon and Catherine
Tue 12 Jul 2011 21:01

54:39.87N 05:40.29W Today’s latitude is very significant, I’ll explain why at the end if you haven’t guessed before then.  This morning it was shipping forecast, then up ready for a 7.30 start when the sill is lowered.  All went like clockwork until 7.20 when we came to start the engine – zero, nothing, silence.  We resigned ourselves to an extra day in Peel but Gordon had worked his magic by 9 – would the bridge still be open and the sill down?  It turned out that several of us had been given duff information yesterday and the bridge was only opening at 9, so we joined the mini procession of boats out through the harbour – phew.   Our destination was not Scotland as originally planned but, following advice from the Harbour Master,  Northern Ireland.  We’d been told that the Irish Sea is often confused and lumpy and so it proved, but we made good progress with a well reefed close haul.  At one stage we could see 3 distinct land masses – the Isle of Man behind us, Scotland to our right and Ireland to our left.  And so to Bangor, which leads me of course to ‘Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor’.  So why is the latitude significant?  Answer – because we are now further north up the west coast than our starting point of Whitby on the east coast.   Photo: evening view over Bangor

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