Day 59 & 60

Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th June 2016

We decided to move on on Monday - it was a long voyage - all 5 miles across Belfast Lough to Bangor - Yes Bangor the one in Northern Ireland not Wales!

We arrived at the lovely Bangor Marina - a really large marina the biggest one we have stayed in since Brighton and I must admit one of the best. The staff are so helpful and the facilities are wonderful.

The marina is home to about 25 of pairs of Black Gulliemots. These funny little birds nest in the walls of the marina. They were first seen to nest there in the 1900's. The marina has put up nesting boxes around the walls. They can been seen early morning and late evening on the pontoons.



The eggs are laid in May and both parents take turns to incubate the eggs for about a month. Then they spend six weeks feeding them Butterfish and then they fly with their parents to Belfast Lough where they stay until October before returning to the marina. The process of "ringing" all the birds has revealed that they return to breed from about four years of age.

The wind was not in the right direction for us to move on today and it was a little damp - "liquid sunshine" as the Irish call it! so another day here. We walked around Bangor this morning. Then along the Coastal path to Wilsons Point



and then found some delightful walled gardens



Then we went passed Bangor Abbey where there was this lovely Bell Sculpture




We had seen a number of boats flying a courtesy flag (you usually fly the flag of the country you are visiting as a courtesy - hence the name)
Which incorporate the flags of Brittany, Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland. We thought that they were rather jolly and were delighted to find a shop that sold them. Altair is now the proud owner of her own Celtic Courtesy flag!