Hamble to Gurensey er Cherbourg
We arrived on the Friday evening for supper with friends at the club. We were too late for the bosun to take me to Sea Crusader so we would have to return home as there was no way to get to the boat. It's location up the river is too far to row and in any event the river was ebbing. Luckily Graham and Ginny offered a berth on Magic for the night so we were able to avoid the return journey.
The forecast for Saturday was force eight gale and so we decided to spend the day doing a few jobs and Linda went to the supermarket as the boat was almost empty of food after the long time in Spain and the return journey.
Sunday was a rough day as well and we could see that Monday was the day to go so we completed our C1331 for customs and fired it off… destination St Peter Port, Guernsey. Well as soon as we left the Needles channel we found that we could not point to Guernsey at all and with the flooding tide it looked as though we were making for St Vaast! It is misleading because when the tide turns the boat is dragged in the other direction so it is important to see what direction you are sailing in and not where the boat is going. The direction of sail was no better than Cherbourg. Officially Cherbourg was closed to visitors as they were hosting the finish of the Fastnet race and many competitors gathered in Cherbourg before the start. Realistically we could have tacked and made it to Alderney but that would have added three hours to the journey so we decided to go to Cherbourg and take a chance. They would either find us a berth or we would anchor. In the event we were allowed to stay on the "waiting pontoon" but this is where we are usually put given our size so it was no hardship. Being a Monday we found that all our favourite restaurants were not open so we ate at the "Yacht club", it is not a yacht club it is just the bar/restaurant in the harbour. The meal was I am sad to say mediocre but welcome just the same, we were on holiday on Sea Crusader.
The forecast for Saturday was force eight gale and so we decided to spend the day doing a few jobs and Linda went to the supermarket as the boat was almost empty of food after the long time in Spain and the return journey.
Sunday was a rough day as well and we could see that Monday was the day to go so we completed our C1331 for customs and fired it off… destination St Peter Port, Guernsey. Well as soon as we left the Needles channel we found that we could not point to Guernsey at all and with the flooding tide it looked as though we were making for St Vaast! It is misleading because when the tide turns the boat is dragged in the other direction so it is important to see what direction you are sailing in and not where the boat is going. The direction of sail was no better than Cherbourg. Officially Cherbourg was closed to visitors as they were hosting the finish of the Fastnet race and many competitors gathered in Cherbourg before the start. Realistically we could have tacked and made it to Alderney but that would have added three hours to the journey so we decided to go to Cherbourg and take a chance. They would either find us a berth or we would anchor. In the event we were allowed to stay on the "waiting pontoon" but this is where we are usually put given our size so it was no hardship. Being a Monday we found that all our favourite restaurants were not open so we ate at the "Yacht club", it is not a yacht club it is just the bar/restaurant in the harbour. The meal was I am sad to say mediocre but welcome just the same, we were on holiday on Sea Crusader.