Younger readers (surprisingly there are two, but I suspect since they are closely related to me they may be reading out of loyalty rather than because it is better than Insta) will struggle to finish this sentence but everyone else will have guessed that I had a Day Trip to Bangor. Not, as it happens, Bangor in North Wales where Fiddlers Dram went for their day out, but Bangor in Northern Ireland. Incidentally, since inexplicably I had to turn to Wikipedia to refresh my memory on the authors of the song, I gather there was a rumour that they actually went to Rhyl but changed the name to Bangor because it scanned better. This enraged the folk of Rhyl who felt they’d missed out on a significant boost to their town’s fame – I bet they’re laughing now.
I have now been to both Bangors, and another fillip for Rhyl – the one in NI is better. It seems to be the Brighton of Northern Ireland, and better than the Brighton of East Sussex too, about which I have similar views to Bristol: just change the name of the financial institution back office and they are interchangeable. Bangor is elegant and unspoiled where Brighton is blighted by development, it is clean and well-kept where Brighton is shabby and full of tourists, and instead of those predictable pale cream Regency and pretend Regency terraces Bangor is full of surprisingly huge Victorian and Edwardian villas with ridiculously large windows all painted tastefully different pastel (this being the North) shades. Like this:
However, and I mention this not to criticize but as a statement of fact – it is quite the noisiest place I have ever spent the night on a boat.
I had spent Sunday morning motoring miserably away from Strangford Lough, miserable not just because I was leaving but because it really was freezing cold, it was drizzling, the visibility was poor and the coast full of rocky bits, the wind was blowing from on the nose as was the tide so I had to motor and sit still and get even colder. I had planned to spend the night anchored off Copeland Island, where the Cruising Association app promised a silent night “broken only by the sound of seals shouting at each other.” This sounded fun, and when I had got there and anchored and stopped laughing at the name of the supposedly treacherous Deputy Reef it was indeed lovely enough, but it was lunchtime (those pesky tides again, I had to be that early) and the afternoon, evening and night stretched ahead. It was still cold, there were signs on the shore warning visitors off, and the novelty of the seals’ barking was wearing a bit thin. It was also threatening to be windy overnight with a shift which could have made the anchorage a bit rolly, so I made a snap decision to go somewhere warm, sheltered and civilised.
Bangor Marina is well known for being all those things and more. It is right in the middle of town and as clean and tidy and friendly as the rest of it, surrounded by those pastel terraces and parks and big breakwaters. And therein lay the problem. On the breakwater to windward was a busker with a huge portable amplifier. He was upwind, and he only knew one song – Apache by The Shadows, that most predictable of busking tunes – and he played it over and over and over again. For hours. Worse still, when the wind changed direction briefly it brought the sound of a second busker in the park next door who was more competent and musically adventurous, but further away so I only got snatches of his contribution. On the other side was a huge children’s play park and it must have been brilliant because the happy screaming occasionally drowned out both buskers. I’d been looking forward to sitting in the cockpit writing a blog in the sunshine but the noise (and the cold) drove me downstairs.
Round about seven the busker on the wall went home, or perhaps he’d been thrown in and drowned by passing yachtsmen. But then – to my horror – the giant funfair wheel thing that I had somehow missed geared up another few notches and started blaring out that sort of funfair mash-up that is designed to make you spend money on stupid things just to get it over and done with. This lasted until closing time, which was the cue for the people on the motorboat behind me to come back from the pub or karaoke bar or wherever they’d been warming up and crank up their onboard sound system. They partied on for an hour or two and went to bed, but then as promisied the wind picked up and it turned out that I was the only person who thought it sensible to tie my halyards so they didn’t bang on the mast all night. The noise was deafening, and I was imagining the peace and quiet of the seals, wind or no.
I woke up to a breezy day but in daylight banging halyards don’t matter so much. It was Monday morning: the children were in school, the buskers were back behind their desks, the motorboat crowd were polishing the spoilers on their cars and the fairground people were dismantling the big wheel in silence. Perhaps it had all been a bad dream.
Then, after a morning of boat jobs I went out to explore the town. Every bit as well-heeled as its seafront, it has ice cream parlours, vegan cafes, kitchen showrooms and zero carbon grocers. Everyone is well-dressed and happy and chatting away. But they are all chatting away at the VERY TOPS OF THEIR VOICES ALL THE TIME. This being Bangor not Portaferry I can generally understand as much as 80% of what they are saying, but I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD EVEN WHEN I AM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, OR ON THE BOAT AND THEY ARE STROLLING AROUND THE PARK. Unfortunately, being the age I am, I keep thinking I am hearing the Rev Ian Paisley on every corner, which takes the edge off the day. I used to think they chose him to lead the DUP because he was good at shouting at the rest of us, now I realise it was because he was the mild, softly spoken face of the party. It all makes last night seem a bit less extreme. Or perhaps they are so overrun by buskers, ferris wheels and screaming children they have had to evolve into the loudest people in the country.
If yacht clubs could shout I reckon the Royal Ulster would win. This is quite the largest clubhouse I have ever seen, and I have been to America. I am also quite impressed by yacht clubs that show no sign of having any boats – the Royal Thames springs to mind, deliberately sited in Knightsbridge not even close to the Serpentine. There’s a degree of chutzpah that you have to admire.
In Brighton this would be a shop selling crystals and hand made candles. In Bangor it is His Majesty’s Coastguard. Yes, really.
Blue Moon's trip around the UK 
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