From Brittany to Guernsey

Low water at Treguier

We left Treguier just after high water at 10.00 BST and motored down the river and inside Heux lighthouse before heading North-west towards Guernsey.





Mid-morning snacks ahoy!


The weather was just relentlessly damp, with lots of drizzle and visibility of not much more than a mile: we just glimpsed the lighthouse at the Roches Douvres through the mist. The wind was dead astern and just a Force 3 so, after an hour with the spinnaker up, we put then engine on and motor-sailed for the next 3 hours. An otherwise dull passage was enlivened at 15.30 when sea-life-mad Laura finally spotted dolphins after about 7 years of sailing with us. We had about a dozen Common Dolphins (with some very young calves) with us for about 10 minutes, with much whooping from the crew.


Guernsey appears out of the mist


We arrived at St Peter Port at about 18.30 so joined a huge, 8-deep, raft of boats at the waiting pontoon until there was enough water at the sill to enter Victoria Marina.



Today, joy of joys, we’ve had bright sunshine all day! So we’ve dried all the damp foul-weather gear and had time to explore ashore. The La Vallette museum of the German occupation, housed in a WW2 German underground bunker, really brought home the challenges faced by the 23,000 civilians here during the 5-year occupation. In light relief we’ve just had an excellent meat at La Nautique restaurant and are planning the next couple of days – we’ll probably do a daysail to Sark tomorrow and then sail back to Dartmouth on Saturday.

Some photos from Treguier

We're writing this having just returned from a great meal at the Restaurant Ponton at the top of the marina walkways. A huge iced plate of shared langoustines, followed by a varied selection of main courses that featured steak, canard and moules, was topped off by some pretty special desserts. We're now contemplating a 9.30 (UK time) departure for Guernsey (after a quick dash to the boulangerie, of course).

I'm trying to add some photos from the passage across from Dartmouth but the website keeps hanging so it may have to wait till we get back home.

Just sorted the problem so here are the photos:

A boisterous channel crossing

Yesterday's forecast was for a westerly Force 5-7 so we decided to set off from the Dart at the relatively relaxed time of 06.00 (I'm not sure Amy and Laura would agree with this) to see what it was like.

We found a pretty steady F5 so had a fast close-reach as we headed almost due south, with a few Force 6 gusts under rain squalls. So, with 2 reefs in the main and one in the yankee we fairly flew along with plenty of spray and a few big waves over the bow.

The crew all did well in the fairly testing conditions, though we were all pretty tired by the time we reached the entrance to Trguier, some 90 miles later, at about 20.00, in heavy rain. A quick supper of chilli and rice restored us and we've all slept well so are about to go and explore ashore this morning.

Having trouble uploading photos at the moment so will try again later!

A Force 6 shake-down sail

The strong winds arrived this morning as forecast so we went out for a couple of hours for a cracking sail in Start Bay. With a double-reefed mainsail and Laura on the helm, Maunie charged about the bay with spray crashing over her bow.

We practiced a couple of 'crash tacks' to simulate a man overboard situation before reaching back towards the Dart, only to be enveloped buy a huge rain squall that was showed as a bright yellow shape on the radar. We stopped for lunch on one of the river pontoons to refill the tanks with fresh water and then the girls went ashore for showers.

We're eating aboard tonight and hoping that the Force 6-7, possibly Gale 8, will blow through so that we can depart for Brittany in the morning. it'll be a 6.00am start so Amy's getting some extra sleep in now!

Start of a week's cruise

We're back aboard Maunie with god-daughter Amy and niece Laura. We're hoping to get back to Brittany and the Channel Islands but the forecast is for Force 7-8 for tomorrow ( Sunday) so the planned channel crossing has been postponed for a day. We still aim to do a shake-down sail, well-reefed, tomorrow and hope that the wind will abate on Monday. At least the rain seems to have passed through so we've had a good day in Dartmouth, with a great lunch at the Dartmouth Apprentice and a relaxed supper aboard as the sun sets over Brittania College.
More news and photos to follow.

Photos from Sark

The camers seems very dead but at least we've managed to extract some photos from its media card.

This is Havre Gosselein on the west coast of the Island.

















The island's main road really is just a dusty track!

Guernsey to Sark to Dartmouth

Thursday saw a lovely one-hour sail from St Peter Port across to Sark. As warned, the French yachts from the overnight rally from Morlaix were rushing in to try to meet the deadline of tide at the marina entrance; the harbour master's two boats were battling to retain some kind of order so it was good to be away!

We picked up a visitor's mooring in a little anchorage on the west side of Sark called Port Gosselein. The word 'port' suggests rather more than this isolated spot offers - just very steep rocky cliffs, a space to leave your dinghy and some very steep steps onto the high top of the island. We climbed up onto the plateau and soon came to the main road running north-south along the middle of the island - it's just a dusty track with only horses, bicycles and the very occasional tractor! We walked south across to Little Sark, crossing the very precipitous La Coupee (just wide enough for a horse and cart and with stern warnings about No Cycling - you usually get blown over the edge apparently). For us, though, the weather was perfect - bright sunshine so we took lots of photos. Unfortunately we can't share these with you at the moment as my trusty Canon G9 has decided to die on me - I'll need to get a card-reader to retrieve them and post them later. Just got this one from my phone for now:



We had a great lunch of Sark lobster at a lovely but slightly chaotic hotel on Little Sark before walking back to the main village, which comprises just one street with a surprising number of tourist shops, two banks and the island's power station (a large diesel generator in a shed).

We returned to the boat to find a 34ft French boat sharing our mooring, which was fine until a nasty swell rolled into the anchorage and we both started to roll quite a lot but at different frequencies and amplitudes. A nasty crashing of masts was imminent, so our very friendly French neighbours decided to bugger off before we had to ask them so to do. A neighbouring British yacht had to be more forceful with his French charter buoy-mate before they did the right thing; We chatted to his skipper afterwards and it transpired we'd seen them in a previous boat in Schull, SW Ireland two years ago - we'd even emailed them a photo of their boat taken from the top of our mast. Small world!

On Friday morning we left at 9.00 for a really good 70-mile crossing back to Dartmouth. We had a brilliant Force 5 NE so reached across the end of Les Casquets shipping lanes and only had to motor for the last 3 hours as the breeze died as the sun set. We were back on the mooring at about 9.00pm.

We spent Saturday sorting a few jobs aboard, Jayne and Joe came across for supper and we left Maunie, very sadly, on Sunday to return home. After an eventful start, it turned out to be a great cruise and we look forward to revisiting Brittany and the Channel Islands later this year if possible.