Westysclan World Cruise 2023

We arrived to a very damp Greenock. After the wet walk from the ship to the cruise terminal we quickly decided that it might be best to head straight to Glasgow in the hope of no, or less, rain.

Once again, with no specific sightseeing goals for Glasgow, we let geocaching be our guide. It didn’t disappoint. As well as some of the more traditional tourist spots, it also took us to some more quirky sights.

One of our more exciting and unexpected finds was the now disused Forth and Clyde Canal that ran from Glasgow, across country to Edinburgh. We had hired a Canal boat for 2020 which of course never happened. I am eager to experience using a lock. Hopefully this will be satisfied in the Panama Canal!

Following the canal along took us quite a way from central Glasgow. With rain starting to threaten it was time to turn back.

It wasn’t raining in Greenock when we returned, so we set out to explore. As Murphy’s Law would have it, we were probably at the furtherest point when it decided to start raining again! Greenock felt pretty deserted so it was refreshing to see lots of people in the shopping centre where we sought refuge. Perhaps it is only tourists who are silly enough to walk!

Back to the comfort of the ship we warmed up in the hot tub and then prepared to watch the sail away from our balcony. The local seagulls were in an excited frenzy over the water watching to see what the ship’s screw and thrusters would churn up! Before we totally left Greenock, much to Mark’s excitement – yes he was ‘froffin’, we were to do a ‘compass swing’. This involves doing multiple 360° spins in the water to calibrate the ship’s magnetic compass.

While we were learning over our balcony watching the ship spin we didn’t notice that the seagulls had turned their attention from the water to us – or more correctly our snacks, until they started their raid and whipped a buffalo wing out of my hand as I was putting it to my mouth. I am sure that Scottish seagulls are twice as big as Aussie seagulls!

Re-enactment:-