Thursday, May 9, 2013

Lady Gwen's Last Day

My old boat 'Lady Gwen II' finally departed Conwy yesterday to start a new chapter in her life in Northern Ireland. She will be working as an angling boat from the port of Ballycastle.  It was an emotional day despite the fact that I hadn't been to sea in her for over a year.  Lady Gwen had been in the family since new, 32 years ago. So as you can imagine I have spent thousands of days on her, many of which were with my Father, Meurig.

She was lifted onto a low loader and travelled up to Troon on the lower reaches of the Clyde. Her new owner will sail her over to Ballycastle across the North Channel, as soon as the bad weather period breaks.  Many great memories went trundling up the A55 today, but already I have quite a few associated with my new boat 'Gwen-Paul-M'.

The fishing well offshore is still ok for pollack with a few coalfish mixed in. Inshore there are plenty of whiting, dabs and dogfish. One of the other angling boats in Conwy did catch a couple of mackerel the other day and within a couple of weeks we should hopefully start seeing them in numbers.  Dad always used to say that we would start seeing them by Cup Final Day which I think is this weekend, but everything is late this year.

I have space for 5 on an 8 hour ground fishing trip this Sunday if anyone fancies a late notice trip.




4 comments:

  1. Goodbye Lady Gwen II - our trip on her to the Isle of Man was one of the best weekends I've ever had, as was our circumnavigation of Anglesey!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes they were cool trips Jon. I think the most priceless incident was when the seagulls scoffed Mike's posh sandwich, off his picnic mat, as we departed Peel!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have many happy memories of the "Lady Gwen". Spent at least 4 trips per year on her during the 32 years. I shall miss sitting on the gas bottle cupboard . The fishing in the 80's and 90's was very good with plenty of big pollack and cod. One incident stands out it was when we were out with you and she had a serious engine breakdown. Mike of "Conway Star" came to our rescue and towed us home. This old man will miss her a great deal

      Delete