That's the baseline of the story from this last week at work, more or less.
I've never been to the western parts of Scotland before, even though I've been working out of this country for about seven or eight years all together now. About time, I would say, that I finally got the opportunity to sail down the River Clyde all the way from Glasgow, through Clyde Firth out to the isle of Arran and beyond. And not only that, but I even found the time to just stroll around in my t-shirt with camera in hand doing nothing else but acting like a tourist of some sort.
Since we have to wait some time for the snaps from Glasgow and the western part of Scotland, this one from one of the harbours on the east side will have to do. Done on one of the rangefinders and a wide lens some time ago. First thing we notice is the size of the bollards on this side of the country, as they are a bit more visible than the ones up around Glasgow area.
We got plenty of time until we have to be out there on the field where we're supposed to put a cable, or an umbilical, down to the seabed and also do a few other things. Not that we got plenty of time as such, because time is very much worth a lot of money in this game, but the weather out there at this particular spot is quite bad at the moment, meaning we are in no rush to get there.
So we're moving slowly. Very much slowly, indeed.
I woke up around 7 this morning, as we were turning west and about to start pass Rathlin Island moving straight west along the northern coast of Ireland. Which happens to be the home of my fellow blogger Michael of the North East Liberties, the owner of the blog with the same name, as you might even know by now. All day I have been sailing away along his coastline, but with no possibility to stop and say hi, of course.
Or, in fact I had some sort of hope to get quite close to the coast as me and the Chief Officer had a discussion yesterday about where the best place would be to get the lifeboat test and the FRC (Fast Rescue Craft) drills done. We ended up agreeing on a point just off Portrush or Portstewart... for some reason. Close enough to easily reach the harbour with the small boat, I hoped.
Everything seemed to work well, for a while, until the captain himself started wondering about where we were heading and why.
You can see for yourselves, as the track we made on the screen of the electronic map looks a bit weird when you think about the fact that we should be heading straight west more or less.
It was still worth the try though...
See, Michael? We were not that far away from sucess after all?!
Terrible sorry about posting a snap full of 0's and 1's, but just had to get this one out...
Well, the work west of Ireland is not finished yet, so there might be a chance to get ashore in Ireland some day for all we know. And if not, I'm pretty determined to get over there anyway another day. It's a nice piece of land, as we know well enough both from Michaels blog and from elsewhere.
I'll be back with something else quite soon!
I did laugh when I saw the chart, Roy, and your attempt to make landfall in Portrush to say Hello. Looks like you nearly made it, too! But that Captain's internal compass must be working well, more's the pity. I hope he doesn't read this blog, or you might be sent to the brig, or whatever the equivalent is nowadays lol. Do they still keel-haul? :)
SvarSlettNice to have you back writing some words and showing some excellent snaps. I see I've a bit of catching up to do, as I seem to have missed some posts. That will be rectified in due course...
Thanks, Michael :)
SvarSlettKeel-hauling has to remain a well kept secret these days, so won't tell you a single word about how it's being done and how often!
I guess worse things than this nice little attempt to get a closer look at the scenery along the north irish coastline has been made through the years, to be honest. We'll probably survive this one as well, I guess.
I was going to make some remark about the last time you Norwegians came through Rathlin to our beautiful North Antrim coast there was probably a fair bit of blood spilled. But that wasn't unusual in those days. Reading the history of Rathlin if it wasn't the English doing the blood-spilling (plenty) it was the Scots (even more). The most famous wreck around Rathlin is HMS Drake, which was torpedoed during WW1. It is rather ironic that the person the vessel was named after, Sir Francis Drake, was a Captain in Queen Elizabeth 1st's navy and was sent to Rathlin to subdue the natives. Which he did - mercilessly.
SvarSlettAh, the old blood-spilling business they used to go through back in the days. No wonder they never made it further than maybe into their early thirties at the time. People at our age were far between and considered fossiles, which might still be the truth looking at our past time hobbies and such :))
SlettI have heard about the HMS Drake wreck, but didn't know it went down around Rathlin to be honest. Thanks for the info, and also the very much ironic story about the link between the ship and the original name owner. I did not know that either. Learn something every day over here, I do :)