Ardglass marina. A lovely tiny safe harbour.




View towards the Isle of Man from above Ardglass across the golf course. You can see it very faintly on the right hand side of the photo.




What a civilised morning. We had blue skies, sunshine and lunch on deck at last. It was hard to extract ourselves from the thermals that have virtually fused themselves to our skin. We were waiting to set off in the early afternoon to catch the tide to take us nicely up the coast and around the headland towards Belfast Lough and Bangor marina.
Today's sail was the most relaxed sail we've had so far with flat seas, gentle winds and lovely views of the gentle County Down coastline.
It was so clear that we were able to see the outline of the Mull of Kintyre in the distance. The North East corner of Northern Ireland, and The Southern tip of The Mull of Kintyre are only about twenty two miles apart, although from safe haven to safe haven for us it could be double that. We'll be making that trip later in the week when the next bout of gales has died down.
Belfast Lough is a vast moody expanse of water that plays host to continuous commercial shipping as well as small fry like ourselves. There are several marinas, and we'd decided on Bangor because it's small and in a pretty location. It's also a good jumping off point for crossing the North Channel to Scotland, but we may head further North to Glenarm and go from there depending on those two old favourites, the wind and the tide.
We'll stay in Bangor for two or three days at least because of the predicted gales, but we're intending to have a good look round Belfast, and might even venture into the new Titanic museum. I wonder if any of the exhibits are interactive?

Belfast Lough in the early evening.