Up The Clyde On a Banana Boat

It's been a useless day. We were going to see the Tall Ships at Greenock - a drive of almost two hours from our house. When I went to get my camera, I realised that I had left it "on" all night and the battery was completely dead. It takes hours to recharge so I wasn't going to be able to use that today. Should have taken the hint and cancelled our day, for the rest of it was to be just as disappointing.

Arrived in Greenock and followed the signs for the Tall Ships Park and Ride. It was in a bit of wasteland across from Tesco. £10 if you please for all day parking, but given that the event itself was free admission then I suppose ......

However, had just handed over the brown note and the attendant then tells us that because this is the last day of the event, the harbour area (which has been the venue for Saturday, Sunday and Monday) is closed today because the Tall Ships are leaving later on in the "Parade of Sail". The event has now been moved to the Esplanade where we would get a good view of the ships as they sailed past. Not knowing Greenock and not having been to the Tall Ships event here or anywhere else before, I had no idea what this might mean. I assumed that when they said the event had been moved there, it was still adjacent to the harbour and that all the other activities would be available - stalls, stands, funfair rides etc - things to do! I hadn't realised until we got on the bus that the "Esplanade" (i.e. a road that ran along the shoreline) was actually about two miles away from Greenock harbour, and that bar a coffee kiosk, two burger vans and an ice cream van, there was nothing else to do or see there. And I mean absolutely nothing - other than to wait for the Red Arrows display at 11.30am and then wait again for the ships to start passing just after 1pm.

There had been no mention of any of this on the Tall Ships Greenock website when I'd looked last night. So basically we had spent £10 to park in a bit of wasteland, be bussed a couple of miles, stand for three hours at a railing on a road that faced the waterfront, and then be bussed back to the car park. Biggest rip off ever I would say. If I had known this beforehand I would never have wasted the petrol money, or the three and a half hours of our lives that it took to drive there and back.

And...I didn't even have my proper camera to occupy my time, just had my iphone one. I was determined to stick out our visit though and get a shot of a tall ship to put on here today, so after hanging around for a couple of hours, they finally started to sail by. This is probably the best one - and it'll have to do.