A Titanic day out

People kept telling us that we should visit the Titanic experience in Belfast. One even said that you could spend the whole day there. I think that's going a bit far, but it was definitely worth visiting. In fact, given the tiny number of actual Titanic artefacts, it's quite astonishing. One lifejacket, one fur coat, a flask and an illuminated walking stick were brought off the sinking ship. One set of keys – to the cupboard containing the binoculars –was never even on board, which is why the ship was so close to the iceberg before it struck.

We booked for 1250 which gave us plenty of time to get there after a rather relaxed start to the day. Google told us to get the No.1, which sounded like a bus, but I think was in fact the train from Bangor. Google was wrong about the walk from Titanic Quarter station though – it told us to allow 30 minutes but in fact it was more like 10, so we were early. Plenty of time to wander around outside and soak up the atmosphere. It's still school holidays in Ireland so once we got in, it was very busy, but you could still see all the exhibits after a few moments' wait, and the audio guide was excellent. For me one of the most fascinating aspects was the evidence given to the US and UK enquiries after the shipwreck – I read the testimony from a third-class passenger to the US enquiry, and from Guglielmo Marconi to the UK enquiry. You don't have to go to Belfast to read it though, the testimony is all available online. On a modern marine VHF, emergency Mayday and Pan Pan calls take priority over everything else, and that is as a direct result of the Titanic disaster, when the radio operators were so busy sending messages from the first class passengers that they didn't take any action on the ice warnings they received. Also the sole radio operator on the closest ship, the SS Californian, had gone to bed. Even though the crew of the Californian probably saw the distress rockets, it still didn't occur to any of them to wake the radio operator to find out what was going on. Of course radio was still very new technology.

All in all it was a moving experience and well worth seeing. We strolled along the river into the city and after a few false starts found a cafe for a very late lunch, and had a wander around. I was particularly struck by a very grand brick building opposite City Hall. It was, I have now discovered, built as a linen warehouse and later it became the HQ of the Water Board. I peered at the main door to see what it is now, and saw familiar initials... M&S. Yes, it is now the main Marks & Spencer store in Belfast. I went inside to use their ladies loo and sadly it looks like any other M&S inside.

We found the Lanyon Place station, although finding the way in was another challenge, and headed back to Bangor. The next challenge will be sailing south from here. There are southwesterlies (on the nose) forecast for every day for the foreseeable future. Sometimes they die away a bit overnight and come back at mid-morning. Possibly we should have sailed off there and then, when it was calm, but we were both knackered and by no means ready for a night sail. Originally I thought Saturday looked better than Friday, but I woke up at 0300 on Friday morning and checked the weather, and then spent a couple of hours unable to work out if the very slight difference between the days warranted dragging Erika out of bed and leaving in an unprepared state. We didn't go, we're still here, and we might go on Saturday or we might not. I can't contact Ardglass, which is most likely our next stop. Aaargh!

This morning I finally girded my loins and went for a slow run, my 17th on the trip. The seas looked calm, but I didn't get as far as the exposed bits of Irish Sea. On the way back I popped in to ask the chandlery if they stocked Imray logbook refills. They didn't, but recommended Todd Navigation up in the High Street. Todds didn't have the refills either but they did have complete logbooks (as well as a fabulous selection of pilot books and charts), so I bought one. Then I trotted back to the boat. While crossing the road I somehow stumbled and fell on to my right elbow and banged my right temple. I felt very sick and dizzy for a few moments, then better, but have taken it very easy this afternoon. We'll see what tomorrow brings.