Day 25 Sat June 9 Bangor to Glenarm
Once again the tides rule on the coast of NI, so we planned to head north on the ebb of the Belfast HW of 1556. Cate did last minute wool shopping for the growing army of baby-knit recipients, while Benj readied the boat, and we slipped out of our Bangor berth to cross Belfast Lough at 1500. Thankfully we encountered very little commercial traffic (aka BFSs) leaving the docks, and we made between 7 and 8knots most of the way round Black Rock and past the high cliffs of The Gobbins (sic) where allegedly in the 17th century in reprisal for some crime, an entire village of 300 souls were cast over the edge. The whole of this coastline is beset by severe overfalls, and we bounced over some of these past the Isle of Muck, exacerbated by wind-over-tide conditions. We berthed in the pretty small harbour of Glenarm at 1900, greeted by the HM who waved us into a berth from the opposite harbour side. He then came down to greet us, plugged us in to an electricity point that did not need a card ("Not a very good salesman, am I?"), and took us up to see their brand new facilities, which are immaculate and well-found. Glenarm is rather a dying village with signs that it was once a busy little community. There are 2.5 pubs (the 0.5 is the Barbican, which opens and closes every now and then), two of which are tiny and side-by-side. After supper aboard we did the mini-pub-crawl in company with the crew of Juggler, a Moody 38 who had been alongside us in both Ardglass and Bangor. Maureen and Brian hail from Derbyshire, keep their boat in Pwhelli in N Wales, and have been sailing up and down this coast for more than 20 years, as well as having done the Classic Malts Rally the year before us, in 2006. We enjoyed a pint of Guinness in each pub, and retired.