Illustrations

"We joined the navy to see the sea/ And what did we see? We saw the sea!" as the song goes plus occasional things like this (on the left) which is a buoy moored a few miles off the Irish coast. These things all have resonant names, this one is called the Skulmartin,are much bigger than they appear until you get close, this one is about 6 metres high. It's round top tells a passing mariner that you can safely leave it either side. They need a fair bit of maintenance which is done by an ancient body called Trinity House who get around in their smart ship which can pluck this thing out of the water, clean it up, repaint it and put it back.

The pretty small marina on the right is at Portaferry in the narrows leading to Strangford Lough, the tides here run up to 7 knots and are now used to generate electricity via an underwater turbine. It was finished quite recently. This marina is under the charge of John Murray , a real gentleman who occasionally swops his jeans and jumper for the more conspicuous orange suit and white helmet as cox'n of the local inshore lifeboat, a big RIB (Rigid Inflatable), a spectacular craft which can zoom around at 25knots plus. It's a very impressive sight at full chat and John and his crew exude that air of invincible competence which is the hallmark of the RNLI everywhere. British yachtsmen have to go abroad to find out how good our lifeboat service is, noticeably better than even our nearest neighbours across the North Sea and the channel. And all entirely financed by voluntary contributions and mostly manned by unpaid volunteers.