The wind has gone round to the north, and is forecast to be up around F5 or F6…..not normally a problem except that our direction is north and the tidal race through Ratlin Sound  is not to be taken lightly in this weather.

A conversation with Ken, the amazingly helpful harbourmaster at Glenarm, confirms the decision. We’re going nowhere for the next 2 days. He gives us the local knowledge of some vicious standing waves reaching 2m just off Tor Head and also of the dangers of an entrance into the river at Coleraine in strong Northerlies.

Freshly showered, we head off to catch a bus to Larne, which is the closest ‘big’ town. The drive along the coast is very pretty, with little villages clinging to the rocky shoreline, and the steep hillsides behind.

Larne itself has seen better days. It reminded us in some ways of Grimsby, with its shuttered shops, the preponderance of vapes and tattoo parlours, and a slightly more modern, but nonetheless dispiriting shopping centre which has turned its back on the high street. A coffee stop turns into lunch/dinner of pie and mash for John and Yee Tak, and quiche and mash for James. With an hour left before the bus back, we set our sights on something more liquid. But this is an Irish town like none we have visited so far. There is not a pub or a bar in sight. We decide to walk back to the train station (near the bus stop) and find a bench for an hour…

…but as luck would have it, there is a station bar. It is wall to wall TV screens showing racing and premier league football, but the barman and handful of early afternoon drinkers are really friendly….one even delivers the Guinesses to our table. It turns out that another used to be on the lifeboat crew at Red Bay, just up the coast. He now has a small fishing boat, and corroborates our own instincts and that of the harbourmaster,  by saying that he most definitely won’t be going out in the next two days.

Back on Heydays, Ken the ever helpful harbourmaster, offers us a more comfy berth for the night, to get us out of the northerly swell which is starting to make its presence felt, even inside the marina. We make the hop around the marina and he compliments us on how easy we made it all look, even in what is turning into a fairly fresh breeze….we try not to look smug, as the next time we do it, we’ll get it wrong….in front of the inevitable crowd of onlookers.

Musings so far…

Seen through the eyes of the news and other writings, we clearly recognise the very different cultures in the north and south of this island….the Catholic dominated south with its proud sense of independence and struggle against the English Crown, and the protestant North with its siege mentality against southern takeover and fierce loyalty to the UK. This is not the time or place to delve into the politics of the two states, just a reflection on what we have seen so far…

…a resurgent and lively independent state largly at peace with itself, and  making real investment in its civic infrastructure. Proud of its battles for freedom, but seemingly without any lasting grudges against the English. A preponderance of bars, music, art and colour (in the towns and villages we visited), all in contrast to a much less colourful and dour protestant north. The lack of bars, the militaristic marching bands of the various orange lodges and, in the words of one local, “our tendency to want to memorialise individuals and never forget.“

He went on to explain that the different marching bands memorialise different people from King Billy to local heroes, as the wreath laid yesterday affirms.

A couple of further musings…

…there seems to be an interesting contrast between the Irish Republic tricolour, representing green for the Catholics, orange for the protestants and white for the hope for the future, set against the St George cross of the north, with its crown and red hand of Ulster, representing a strong and separate loyalist identity and, so we are told, no surrender.

The detective writer Peter May, has set his Lewis Trilogy in the outer Hebrides and he describes the Northern calvinist Isles as dour and soulless, with, even until very recent times, a banning of pubs or music on Sundays, in contrast to the Catholic southern isles of South Uist and Barra, where life (and drinking and music) was more free and easy. If Heydays gets that far next year, we’ll report back.