As I’m sure you’ll remember (Ferry(gliding) Cross The Mersey) sailing into Liverpool is at the same time rather wonderful but also something of a dark art. You can only get there around High Water when the tide is slack enough not to get swept past the lock gates, and the nearest places to leave from are so tidal that you can also only leave around High Water, requiring you to spend 12 hours or so at sea, around eight more than you need if you’re coming from somewhere close, say Preston or Fleetwood. It works better if you are coming from somewhere 12 hours away, such as the Isle of Man, but if the tide is at lunchtime then you would need to leave at midnight, which is not much fun if you’re on your own. So I had pencilled in a date a week away when the tide was early afternoon to give me enough time to get there from somewhere that I could leave in daylight, and yet again the only places with no tide restrictions are either North Wales or Piel Island at the entrance to Barrow-in-Furness. I had been there on the way out of Liverpool and in spite of being excited to find the only pub where the landlord is crowned king of his own island (It’s yachting, Jim, but not as we know it), I’d found the pub shut and it all rather bleak, but if the alternative was heading all the way to Wales again then I would have to make do. I was in Bangor, top left on the chart above, which is quite a way from Barrow. On the one hand, it should be three comfortable day sails from Liverpool and I had five days before the tides could be considered civilised; on the other, that meant plenty of time for the wind to make a complete nuisance of itself by changing its mind and either blowing from the wrong direction or not at all.
Not at all accounted for one of those days so I spent it in Bangor doing useful things like grocery shopping, then the wind swung round to the South-East and made for a very pleasant sail down the coast to a village called Ardglass just south of Strangford Lough. We had to miss it last year but I’d wanted to go there as it looked pretty and everyone said the tiny marina (apparently set up by a community charity to foster inter-community goodwill during The Troubles) was exceedingly friendly, run as it is by local volunteers. They also mention that it is extremely small and hemmed in by rocks, but worth it because there are no less than four castles to look at.
I can vouch for all of these things, having tried them out in short order. I had no sooner tied up than a friendly local arrived on the pontoon, I assumed just to welcome me in. “You’ll be wanting this, to be sure” (again, recorded verbatim, honest) he said, holding up the brand new fender I had bought to replace the one I hadn’t tied on properly in Lochinver. “How embarassing,” I replied, “that’s the brand new one I bought to replace the one I hadn’t tied on properly in Lochinver.” “You’ll be wanting to use another knot, then” he quipped, and disappeared.
I went off to stretch my legs and look at castles. Sadly, none of them encourage actual hands-on visits as they are all quite small and ruined.
Sadder still, the one I thought would be the best turns out to be a mock castle turned into a nursing home.
I looked around on the map to find something to explore and hit on St Patrick’s Well, a pleasant few miles away back up the coast. This felt like a very different part of Ireland.
Never mind castles or wells, I thought Ardglass was worth a vsit for its excellent fish and chips (it is a major fishing harbour) but best of all the most self-referential wall of fame:
Fans of Timmy Mallett, and I know at least one devoted reader is, may enjoy this heart-warming video: https://www.tiktok.com/@timmymallett/video/7351555619964374305
Finally, having gone to get my last fish supper of this year’s trip (I had to, it’s a fishing harbour) I returned to find the friendly locals were pulling a boat off one of the rocks which he’d hit on the way in through the very narrow channel, thereby illustrating all of Ardglass’ attributes in one go:
A year ago I had been excited by my first ever visit to the Isle of Man, but to be honest I had also expected it to be my last. However, it turns out that getting from A to B in the Irish Sea usually involves stopping there as it is bang in the middle. However, it’s not an ideal place for a casual stop-over: as you may recall (Going South for the Winter (via the Isle of Man)) we had had to lock out of the harbour in Peel in the middle of the night to catch the next morning’s tide. With tides again at midday and midnight I needed to find somewhere to anchor instead so that I could use two whole days for sailing – one from Ireland and one to England – and, with the wind in the north, Castletown on the south side looked promising. I consulted the pilot books and they were full of promise: Man’s ancient capital is apparently a lovely old town of cobbled streets, grand castles, top seafood restaurants and excellent pubs selling local beer. Promise is all it remains, and all I expected: I got there at low tide and the whole lot was a couple of metres high and dry, so I anchored in the bay as suggested and looked at it through the binoculars. Sadly the anchorage recommendation forgot to include the small matter of being at the end of the airport runway, where Easyjet seemed to keep the Isle of Man connected until at least midnight.
From Castletown to Piel Island is about 48 miles in a straight line, but that corner of the Irish Sea is stuffed with wind farms that you’re not supposed to sail through, so it was going to be over 60 miles and another start in the dark. I had formulated a cunning race-winning strategy however: armed with the certainty of an Irish Sea weather forecast I would sail on starboard tack up the Manx coast to Douglas until the big left-hander arrived, then tack onto the new breeze to lay the top of the windfarms, bear away onto a broad reach down the Cumbrian coast as the wind piped up to the threatened Force 6 and be at Piel well before dark. I sound just like Ben Ainslie on his AC75 microphone, and non-sailors will be impressed by the foreign language.
Unfortunately, unlike SIr Ben’s, my race-winning strategies rarely survive the execution and today’s was no different. There was no wind so I had to motor up the Manx coast; when it did fill in it was from the East so I had to motor-sail to the top of the wind farm; then it did miraculously swing left 30 degrees which allowed me time to put full sail up and even rig spinnaker gear before it dropped altogether, forcing me to put the engine back on; no sooner had I done that than it came back with a vengeance from the East again so I ended up beating into Barrow after all into quite a stiff breeze. I looked at the log later and found I had put reefs in and taken them out again eight times.
I picked up a mooring off the pub thirteen hours after leaving Castletown. A cheery couple came by in a RIB holding actual pints of beer – hurrah! – after the disappointment of my visit in May I would be able to go ashore and have a pint with the King of Piel. But I was too tired tonight, and tomorrow was too windy to go to Liverpool, so I had a whole day to go ashore and explore. I felt I’d earned it.
Next morning: disaster. The Piel Ferry Facebook page announced that it was too windy to run today, and the pub made it quite clear that it only opened when the ferry was running. It was indeed very windy, and the pub and moorings are on a lee shore (non-sailors – exposed to the wind) with only a low island for protection, so as the tide came in it got bouncier and bouncier so I could see why they wouldn’t run. Bitterly disappointed, I resigned myself to a day on board but then miraculously the wind dropped a little and I recovered my zest for adventure – it was a lovely sunny day and, pub or no pub, I would go and explore the castle at least. I blew up the dinghy, persuaded the outboard to start after ‘only’ five minutes of swearing, and headed in. I managed to land before the pier went under water, put the dinghy onto some rocks, and scrambled ashore.
To my surprise, there were two men and two dogs waiting for me. Remembering my place, I said cheerily, but I hoped deferentially, “hello, is one of you The King?”. They laughed. “That’s me,” replied the least king-like one, “but I don’t feel like it right now, I’m trying to fix the generator.” He waved an oily hand at the shed behind the pub. “Ah, well, nice to meet you anyway, ” I said, “shame about the ferry not running.” “Why?” he asked, “you’ve got your own boat.” I explained that it was my second visit this year and perhaps I’d be lucky third time and the pub would be open. He laughed again. “Oh, we’re not open,” he explained, not entirely successfully, “but we’re open for a pint. Just give me ten minutes to sort this out and I’ll pour you one.”
I went and had a look at the castle which, to my surprise, was a lot more impressive that any of Ardglass’ four or Castletown’s through binoculars…
…came across a terrace of what used to be pilots’ cottages where apparently a couple of people live while the others are rather grim-looking holiday homes…
…and discovered that if you stand on a sandy beach on a sunny day far enough away, Barrow can look quite attractive. I gather that’s not so much the case closer up.
I returned from this exhaustive 20-minute exploration of the island to find that two of the cottages’ residents had sensed my arrival and made their way to the pub and appeared to be waiting for me. Sure enough, The King put down his tools, went round the back and opened up for all three of us.
I take back all of my earlier comments about Piel. On the wrong day, in the wrong weather, with the pub shut, it is bleak as hell. On a sunny Saturday in September, pint in hand, swapping stories with one of the cottage residents who had just sailed back from Oban, it was a pretty decent way to end a pretty fabulous summer.
Blue Moon's trip around the UK 
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