Gone Fishing

Went up to Whitehaven today to pick up an acoustic bass I’d got for a bargain price off Facebook. Well, I say a bargain, but if I’d just gone there and back the fuel costs would have eaten into the perceived savings. Please note I am applying female handbag buying logic to this guitar purchase. It has not cost me “£X”, I have saved “£Y”!
Anyway, to avoid unnecessary questions about using twenty quids worth of diesel to “save” money, I said we were going for a day out to the seaside and - totally coincidentally and only because it was on the way - I’d collect the guitar I’d picked up for a bargain price. Not entirely sure I was believed, but we ended up walking around Whitehaven Harbour after I’d picked up the guitar, so win-win all round.
It’s not that big a harbour but this little boat setting out on a fishing trip did look rather lost as it slipped out of the lock - the fact they only had to open one of the gates speaks volumes. Of course, that lock wasn’t there back in 1778 when Whitehaven was the scene of the only American invasion of Britain. John Paul Jones was born in Scotland and apprenticed in Whitehaven, but ended up helping found the Continental Navy during the American War of Independence. Responsible for sinking many ships up and down the west coast of England, his raid on Whitehaven didn’t really come off as he sent his sailors to a harbour side inn to find fuel, and they didn’t return until the following morning!
Branded a pirate and a fugitive by the British, he was praised and honoured in the USA. But a plaque I read further round the harbour mentioned that, in 1999, in the presence of an officer of the US Navy, he was officially pardoned by the harbour master, on behalf of the town. OK, it was over 200 years since he died, and the Americans had already given him a Congressional Medal and interred his remains in the US Naval Academy Chapel but, hey, it’s the thought that counts!