Our next few days were all at sea as we sailed the North Atlantic Ocean on route to Paamuit Greenland. This leaves me one more ocean to sail upon and I will have sailed all the World’s oceans. Can you guess which ocean I haven’t sailed yet?
The weather was mild and sunny, so a good day for a few laps of the deck before lunch! Not sure why the pool was emptied, but it did not look good today… A bit green.
One of the great things about sea days on Regent Seven Seas is that they usually schedule something interesting (well to me anyway) like a Connoisseur Wine Lunch. Today was one of those days.
It was a short overnight transit from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Killybegs, Ireland, of 192 nautical miles (170kms) where we docked unlike in Dublin.
Transit In
I woke up in time to be able to enjoy the picturesque transit to the Killybegs, Ireland, wharf.
After sailing 103 nautical miles (191Kms) from Dún Laoghaire we docked at Belfast Harbour in Northern Island on a very sunny and pleasant day. My day in Belfast was a full one starting with a visit to Titanic Belfast in the morning and then a pub crawl through downtown Belfast in the afternoon.
The view from my cabin
Titanic Belfast
Titanic Belfast is a short drive from where the ship was docked through the industrial area surrounding the port. As you drive up the building that houses Titanic Belfast definitely makes an impact.
We arrived in at the port of Dún Laoghaire after our 420 nautical mile transit from Southampton on time on our second day.
I was surprised that we were not going to be docking at Dublin Port, today we would be transferred to the port using the ship’s tenders. The reason for this was that the Port of Dublin has been closed to Cruise Ships since the start of Brexit as the cargo traffic increased significantly and therefore the decision was that cargo was more important that tourism.
Samuel Beckett Bridge
I am fine with tenders, though a number of other passengers were not as comfortable with them. Not sure if this meant that a number of passengers decided to stay onboard, the tender I was on was full.
Dublin Highlights Tour
I would post the tour description, but what is in the provided the materials was for a different tour that sounded like a combination of my morning tour and my afternoon tour.
My morning tour was about 4 hours in duration and was a coach trip around some of the historical landmarks of Dublin.
From Southampton England to Dun Laogharie (Dublin) Ireland is approximately 420 nautical miles (about 778Kms) which took us about a day and half to sail.
After a great night at the RAC it was time leave London and head to Southampton to join my home for the next two weeks, SS Voyager as a part of my North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean adventure . Traffic in London is always a challenge, especially for a 40+ seat coach.
Transfer to the ship
Our coach arrived at the Landmark hotel about 20 mins late and then had to deal with a lot traffic before getting to one of the ring roads around London and then onto Southampton. There were roadworks as we neared Southampton, slowing us even further. This meant that we arrived about 90 mins late. Not the greatest start to the trip and it was about to get worse.
Check In
At the port, due to the delays we experienced on the way from London, we arrived at the same time as a number of other buses so I was expecting a decent queue but not 90 mins worth of one. The queue was due to the checking of everyone’s Covid-19 related documentation, test results and vaccination status. I think it could have been handled a lot better by streamlining the process and having us line up once and checking everything at once as well as check us in.
Also, not a great idea having us all queue up with everyone pre-checking everyone’s Covid-19 test results, no physically distancing in sight….
