April 4--Belfast to Bushmills

John was up early. I joined him in time to watch Ken cook a Ulster Fry for our breakfast. We asked Ken to join us. I wanted his take on the sinking of the Titanic, the exhibition we would see later that morning. I knew he had worked at the very same shipyard that 100 years ago had built the Titanic.  Anna was on her way to swimming, so we bid her good-bye.  What a lovely woman!  

Once at table, Ken thought for a moment and said that he felt the Titanic's sinking essentially came down to mis-management and arrogance. The White Star line executive director, who was aboard but survived, wanted to break a speed record. The Captain, who should have known the waters of the North Atlantic were dangerous, allowed a more northerly route than he knew to be safe. The Captain of a passing ship had reported icebergs but no one took the warning seriously. The waterproof bulkhead compartments did not have tops, allowing them to fill and take the ship down (this, Ken said, was the technical reason for its sinking.) The radio calls for help were "walked over" by other operators. There was no SOS or other set protocols for such a disaster.  There were only enough life boats to hold about one-third of the guests and crew members.  

A knock at the door brought our previous night's dinner companion, John Clark, who had come to sell Ken some engineering parts. Small world.   We had an enjoyable chat as John loaded the car for our trip north.  

As it turned out, later in the day, I learned more at breakfast from  Ken then from our visit to Titanic Belfast. In any case, after our Ulster Fry, we set off and reached the Belfast shipyards in only 25 minutes, where we parked at the Titanic museum. As we climbed the six stories of the museum proper, we learned about early 20th century Belfast, the linen industry, ship building, the vision for the Titanic, the largest ship of its time, and its disastrous cruise. It disembarked from Belfast, where most of its 900 crew complement boarded. It took on passengers in Southampton and made two other short stops before it began its journey on April 10, 1912 with 2224 people aboard. 

On April 12, 1912, it hit an iceberg ripping open 5 of the 16 watertight bulkhead compartments. Seven hundred and five people survived.  Over 1500 died, many the sole breadwinners for their families. The disaster led to new laws of the sea governing safety, most of which are still in place today, including number of lifeboats required, SOS and other radio protocols.  Our tour ended with video from the salvage operation mounted in 1985. 

Causeway Coastal Route, along the North Ireland coast where we hiked to and crossed the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The 66' bridge connects the mainland to a tiny island.  Along the northern coast were many shooting locations for a popular HBO series, Game of Thrones.  We spend some time, with a very tricky map, trying to find the shooting locations.  We were never quite sure we had gotten it right.  




















We stopped, for the night, at Islandcorr Farm B&B. Dinner was at the Bushmills Inn, where John ordered the best salmon either of us had ever eaten. He toasted "the rope bridge" and I toasted "Ken and Anna Johnson."  We returned to the B&B for a restful night's sleep.