Belfast to Belfast, it has taken 10,000 miles (a bit more actually) But I am finally here.
This is not the city hall's best side.
Belfast Maine is a fairly small town, bigger than Donaghadee, smaller than Bangor (our Bangor - the "other" Bangor is actually just up the river from here, had there been a bus I might have visited.
Coming up the river was a bit like looking at Belfast Lough (the Cultra side), maybe, at a stretch
Well, ok, we don't have docks at every house (tidal range is about 7 feet if I recall correctly, so Docks are not too onerous to put in.
Lots of people get out on the water, though it is a bit lurky dismal grey today.
I radio the harbour master (Cathy) and she says they are a bit packed as New York Yacht club boats are arriving tonight and tomorrow. I say I am on a pilgrimage from Belfast, Northern Ireland and very keen to visit Belfast Maine, Oh, says Cathy, in that case you can have a buoy right in front of the town. Turn right at red buoy 6 and take the second buoy. The staff are just finishing so I have to find the buoy in the gloom and the glar. I think another boat is on it and pick up a private one, after calculating I will have six inches under my keel at low water. In the morning the people who I thought were on my mooring come over and point out the one I should have got last night. I move and am in safe for the next 3 days. I fly a real Union Jack as a house flag from the forestay so the tourists can wonder... (the red ensign is universally mis-understood - I have had people think it was a New Zealand flag)
It is Saturday morning and I see a rowing boat;
It is loosely like a scillies Gig I think - there is a number of boats about and when I get chatting to them, they say the designs are very loose - there are no regulations. One of the teams tried to take their boat to the Isles of Scilly but stopped when they realised they would have to get their boat measured. In the end they went and were lent a "proper" scillies gig. These boats are interesting as Shirley and I have rowed (as in used oars and not argued...) in the Strangford "St Ayles skiff" with its four rowers and a coxain.
If that was my boat, I would have the cox beat a drum...
There are a number of nice boats too;
The boat building competition is of great interest to me, the competitors have two hours to build a boat, which gets judged. Activity is frenetic
Time is nearly up! there have been a number of heats
These two guys are wrestling to get a panel to line up, I ask will it float and one guy replies, Will it hell, will it get finished is a better question. I think they are under a bit of time pressure.
The magic of plywood, and these days epoxy resin, and filler to make fillets, painting plywood all over with epoxy and even draping a layer of fibreglass over plywood with more epoxy and tape at the seams makes for a cheap boat - as long as you paint epoxy - it doesn't like sunshine.
All through America I have seen evidence of lots and lots of people and organisations sponsoring things. From bench seats to complete parks - lots of things in Annapolis Navy Academy for instance. Here we see Belfast City and the Belfast Co-op have helped with the festival. I visit the Coop, it has a good cafe and Wifi. Its goods are expensive though and it is the only place to buy food in the town. In fact the town is a mix of old buildings and tourist shops, not that upmarket, I think the town and area have had some economic downtown, when I visit the museum I see that former industry has gone.
The buildings are unpretentious.
As usual, lots of the older buildings are protected and preserved, and a walking tour around the tour with numbered plaques, of course I just sort of randomly wander about absorbing the ambience, rather than walking in the approved order. The town is basically a dozen streets anyway so, not big.
There are lots of tourists including french speakers from Canada. Hence the dual nationality signs.
A better view of the city hall
A wee museum - in the process of moving but some interesting things anyway. I had read in the pilot on the way up that, according to them, Belfast means place of many anchorages, I engage with the lady running the museum to tell her that I was told as a school child that the name Belfast came from Bel Farset - the mouth of the Farset river - or something like that in Gaelic. (I hope I am right - she wrote it down - I told her Google was her friend and she said, not her friend, she prefered books and word of mouth).
I checked later - the Gaelic is Beal Feirste - and Feirste is gaelic for sandbar, but at a later date it was true that the Lagan and Farset rivers joined at Belfast. Therein lies the truth or the fake news - who knows?
I checked later - the Gaelic is Beal Feirste - and Feirste is gaelic for sandbar, but at a later date it was true that the Lagan and Farset rivers joined at Belfast. Therein lies the truth or the fake news - who knows?
My phone has no 4G ( or lower) reception here - unusual as so far the states has had remarkably good reception the whole way up the coast. And no T-mobile shop here either, which is a disaster as I had hoped to open the phone up to be able to use it in Canada - would have cost me 5 dollars for a month - I can't do it online as the credit card form requires a US zip code <sigh> I phone a human on their helpline, after some time when I could hear her clicking in the background, she tells me, sorry she can't help me as her computer needed a US zipcode. Not impressed with their human helpline. (the T-mobile account is actually run my MetroPCS which has had shops in every town to date. I should have sorted it out ion Boston.
Anyway, the museum;
I go to the old cinema ( the Colonial pictured above) that evening to see Mission Impossible, if you ask me it was impossible.
How the land was divied up originally, I suppose incoming settlers were glad of it.
Back in the harbour I get to exmine the gigs and chat to some of the crew, they tell me there is community rowing at 7:30 on Sunday morning - I could turn up and get a row! In the end the numbers don't quite suit and whilst they have one "passenger seat" it is in the bow and it would be unfair to the rowers to put someone of my weight in the bow - it makes rowing much harder if a boat is bow heavy.
They have a really good brokeback trailer.
Their thole pins rarely break - they use oak.
Or high tech - there are no rules apart from length and number of crew.
Along the waterfront is a boatyard with the biggest boatlift I have ever seen.
440 Ton(ne?)s Dig those tires!
There is a bridge of low fixed height in the river, but a good walk up the riverbanks
I am particulary inpressed that Penobscot McCrum gave them the land for the trail. I must research this McCrum fellow - maybe I am a rich landowner in Maine! The larger bay on the way up here holds the Penobscot river.
and I find a chair! but don't like the design much, although I would like all lobster pots lifted off the seabed and brought ashore to be used to make other things.
As I leave I spot an evocative boat name - "Racundra" the boat design looks accurate too - the real Arthur Ransome (who wrote Swallows and Amazons) sailed a small boat around the Baltic with his lover, who I think was Trotsky's secretary. Arthur Ransome was also friendly with a few leading lights in the Marxist world and did some work for MI5, as well as writing sailing books that probably got me here..
And then onwards to Nova Scotia, I stop for the night 25 miles from here near Rockland, I manage to get phone reception to report my leaving the US and head off at 7am. 40 Hours later I arrive in Shelburne with only lobster pots, fog and tiredness to cope with.
