After breakfast I go to the harbour master, pay, and am again very kindly served. Showers, toilet facilities etc., everything tiptop. The lady in the tourist office, who receives guests in the same building, also gives me valuable knowledge about the region without being asked. In the harbour, I get ready for the four-hour trip ‘over’ to the Isle of Man – but then one of the other boatmen tells me that he has heard of sailors who were not allowed to enter and were anchored off Douglas for a long time… So I look it up, make a phone call, and sure enough: this island, which like Guernsey and Jersey have an autonomous status within Great Britain and maintain it very successfully, plays its own Corona game and closes the doors. Doesn’t let anyone in who hasn’t been vaccinated x times and tested to boot!
Whew, I’m glad I was made aware of this at the last moment – it’s really fine how the people here in Ballycastle approach me attentively and don’t hold back with tips – without becoming pushy. I felt the same way in Wick; both places are on the absolute periphery, Wick in the north-east of Scotland, Ballycastle in the north-east of Northern Ireland. They seem to produce a special breed of people. Very pleasant, very inviting – but I go on anyway. Well, very spontaneously, to Belfast. And as soon as the lady from the tourist office hears about it, she jumps in after me and supplies me with brochures and further information about my next destination. So lovely!
So I leaf through the brochures, have a look, sit down and take my time (Belfast is relatively close), and then go over to the beach where the guys from the sea rescue are just putting up their flags. Their day is about to begin; the season won’t last much longer, until then they will watch over this beach and regularly practise their skills with the (rescue) surfboard. The weather is OK, the water very fresh, there are already some waves, and I allow myself the morning swim.
Then it’s time to cast off; the journey begins comfortably, smooth seas in the bay off Ballycastle – until the picture changes abruptly: Another 100 metres or so, and a wave bank opens up, with spray that doesn’t look friendly. I drive straight towards it, pull out my mobile phone to record the spectacle, and at the last moment intuitively reduce my speed from 60 to about 45 km/h. Apparently I didn’t want to overdo it. Apparently, I didn’t want to climb into/onto this wave too quickly. But the ArgoFram pulls through the water as if nothing is wrong. Sure, it shakes me, but it doesn’t take off, doesn’t do any ‘leaps of joy’. Then follow eddy after eddy, whirlpool after whirlpool, interspersed again and again with these strange ‘standing’ waves – ocean currents must be crashing into each other here; all hell must be breaking loose under the water’s surface. (I was ‘of course’ once again only concerned with the land and the people, but I didn’t enquire what I had to look out for when crossing these places between the offshore island. I didn’t think of anything at all, nor did I look at a tide table. I didn’t even know that there were such tricky spots here, or rather, I had already forgotten about yesterday’s rather strange entrance. – Am I starting to push my beginner’s luck?
The spectacle lasts only a few minutes, a few kilometres, but repeats itself a short time later! – Wow, I think, this boat is really made for it. I, too, remain surprisingly composed. I comment directly into the recording what I am experiencing. I like it there, somehow.
Two hours later I arrive in Belfast. – Belfast is a port rich in tradition, still important today, a large port with many shipyards. And an exciting history. The Titanic Museum, which was built in a former shipyard (where the Titanic and her sister ships were built), tells the story in the best possible way: Heavy industry, that was once. Services are shaping the future, or at least they are preparing for it. And if you want to see how history is reprocessed and presented nowadays, here you will find the best example – folks, this museum is almost 10 years old, but still way ahead. Edutainment at its best. You have to experience it! That’s how museums work today!
Later I go for an evening walk in the city centre. But Belfast remains Belfast, despite great efforts it cannot get out of its image: Somehow desolate, somehow torn apart, somehow disconnected. Still. – As if in defiance, in the pubs the dreariness is yelled away (and drunk away); loud music flows through the old narrow streets. Defiantly, too, young people dance on their mobile bar and DJ carts. The older ones squat together and toast each other, directly under the oversized posters on the walls of the houses, which call on people to keep their distance.