Bangor to Ballycastle

Getting the tides right to go from Bangor to Ballycastle is an interesting exercise in a boat that reliably does 4 knots under motor in calm conditions. I worked out that leaving Bangor two and a half hours before high water would get Robinetta round Fair Head at low water and let us pick up a back eddy on the other side to help us in to Ballycastle. That was the theory anyhow. The back up plan was stopping in Glenarm, or anchoring in one of the bays to wait for the tide to turn.

Black Head Lighthouse

I put the route into our chart plotter before leaving Bangor at 0700, and it forecast our arrival time in Ballycastle at 1645. That meant we would be going round Fair Head at the end of low tide slack water, so there was very little room for error.

The day was grey and overcast, and stayed that way except for one beautiful hour as we motored past the Gubbins and the Isle of Muck, very close in as advised by Peter, so we had a great view of the cliffs and the birds.

Isle of Muck

By the time we were passing the entrance to Larne we were back to a day of grey, with what wind there was behind us. The stay sail just about filled, but the main would not have contributed anything so I was not tempted to put it up.

Past Larne the swell got up, and the visibility closed down. As I passed each headland the amount of swell increased, and only the line on the chartplotter told me where to steer next. The last major headland before Fair Head is Garron Point, about 6 miles south of Cushendun. Just beyond Cushenden is Tornamoney Point. I could not see Tornamoney Point from Garron Point, so ended up hugging the coast a bit longer than I intended to; following a chart plotter course can be difficult with nothing to aim at.

Every now and then it would rain and for a mercifully brief time the drops were bouncing off the sea. It was not much fun, and the sea state was too challenging for a novice helmsman like Alex. He was good at providing food and drink though, which made an invaluable contribution! We were making good time, a steady 5 knots with the tide under us and the engine not quite on full revs.

As we neared the final bay before Fair Head I thought we had lost the battle to make the tide gate. We were suddenly only doing 2 knots, and our arrival time at Ballycastle crashed to after 6pm. That would put us in the middle of the tide flooding out of Rathlin Sound at Fair Head and Robinetta might well be stuck going nowhere. Then the speed picked up to 3.5 knots. We must have been in a back eddy before, but the tide had definitely stopped helping us.

Close in to Fair Head

I looked at anchoring to wait out the tide, but we were so close to Fair Head that I decided to press on. Following Peter's advice we went right up to the cliffs, passing about a hundred metres off them. Two hundred meters to starboard I could see obvious overfalls, but we were in calm water, with only a little swell.

On the far side of Fair Head the overfalls came within a hundred metres of the cliff, and we went through the edge of them, which was not actually as bad as the swells we met on the beam around lunchtime when a dollop of water landed in the cockpit for the first time since we've owned Robinetta. Within three minutes we were clear of the over falls, but we crept clear of Fair Head at under 2 knots against the tide.

We never found the back eddy that should have helped us towards Ballycastle, but the wind came round to the port quarter, at at least force 4, so the jib came out to help the staysail and engine and we were soon making 3.5 knots, in calm seas.

I called up the marina at 1645 (the pilot book said they worked office hours) and when we got in at 1710 they had someone waiting on the pontoon to show us where to go and take our lines. Very helpful at the end of a long day!