Departed Ipswich 05:20UT towards Burnham Yacht Harbour eta 15:00UT
Alternate Bradwell Marina
Alternate Bradwell Marina
Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Passage Plan- Tuesday 21 August 2018
Departing North Fambridge by 10:00UT towards Bradwell Marina eta 17:00UT
Alternates: Burnham Yacht Harbour, Brankfleet anchorage (River Roach), Pyefleet, Brightlingsea
Alternates: Burnham Yacht Harbour, Brankfleet anchorage (River Roach), Pyefleet, Brightlingsea
Monday, 23 July 2018
The Channel Islands - Paradise with a Twist (2018 Summer Cruise Conclusions)
This was our longest cruise away from base to date ... and for reasons I'll come back to later almost certainly our last "long" cruise for some years to come.
The leg down channel was not, it has to be said, a pleasure cruise. Dover to Sovereign Harbour was, for the second year running, particularly frustrating. Pagan doesn't much enjoy bashing into an F5/6 on the nose with a steep Channel chop knocking the stuffing out of her forward progress. And frankly the crew didn't enjoy it much either.
In hindsight, it was probably a little too ambitious to plan to make St Peter Port in a week. Do-able, certainly, but it put pressure on that we could have done without. That said, the overnight passage from Eastbourne to Guernsey was very satisfying (I do like night sailing!). Another time I'd make sure we had a more relaxed schedule.
Once in the Channel Islands, we were blessed with a sustained spell of astonishingly good weather. There was, perhaps, a little bit too much wind from the North East in the first week (and oh how we could have done with that wind a week earlier!) but it did little to affect our enjoyment.
It did though get a bit too windy for comfort over the middle weekend but we'd wisely cut and run back to St. Peter Port on the Thursday. That proved to be a very astute decision as St. Peter Port filled up rapidly on the Friday with everybody wanting to get into shelter over the weekend.
As detailed in the earlier posts, we felt we hadn't done Sark justice and changed our plans to go back a second time rather than move on to Jersey and St. Malo. That too proved to be good judgement. Sark is without a doubt magical.
We missed out on Herm but we didn't mind. It gives us an excuse, as if we needed one, to go back another time!
We spent a lot of time in the two marinas, more perhaps than we envisaged. But it's impossible to regret that. St. Peter Port is lively, vibrant and full of places to go, places to eat, places to drink and places to shop. Beaucette is peaceful, sheltered and has a superb restaurant (but nothing else). Each in their own way is to be highly recommended.
And now for the twist.
Swell
Only in Beaucette, and in St. Peter Port when the cill was uncovered, were we ever entirely free of the influence of a (mostly) Southerly swell. No matter what the wind conditions, no matter what the wind direction, no matter what the tide was doing, the swell made it's presence felt the whole time.
With the exception of the one night on the buoy at Havre Gosselin (Sark) it was never particularly bad or uncomfortable but it was always there. And we had near ideal weather conditions. Even so, there were times when even in the shelter of Victoria Marina in St. Peter Port the boat was swaying about sufficiently to make life on board slightly annoying if not downright unpleasant.
And I would reckon that if the wind blew up for a spell there is probably nowhere in the Balliwick of Guernsey which could be described as fully sheltered at all states of the sea and tide. It isn't a reason to avoid the islands but it does have to be considered - especially in high season when the availability of inner marina berths is at a premium. Out on the outer pontoons at St. Peter Port over the middle weekend the moored vessels were plunging about sufficiently to make life damned uncomfortable.
Despite changing our plans half way through the cruise, the crew changes worked smoothly. I am most impressed by the service provided by Flybe - being able to go onto their website and quickly change flights at minimal cost (anything up to two hours before flying although we did it several days ahead) made the change of plans very easy to execute.
The return leg was definitely more of a holiday than the outward leg. With neither myself nor Richard needing to be back for ten to twelve days, we were able to take a bit of time at the nice places along the way. Unfortunately we also had to take a bit of time at my least favourite port due to the weather.
So would we go back to the Channel Islands again? Hell yes! But there is a but. I would want to have at least six weeks to do it - two out, two there (minimum) and two back. And preferably longer in the middle. And it has to be acknowledged that on another visit the weather might not be as good, indeed it's unlikely it would be as good, which could make all the difference.
Looking ahead, we learnt a great deal from this cruise.
The first is that we simply have to upgrade Pagan's anchoring gear. Hauling 45m of somewhat rusty chain aboard with the old manual windlass was a killer job. We want, as soon as we can afford it, a self launching anchor, new (and longer) chain and an electric windlass.
The second is that we need to sort out our dinghy and outboard(s). The borrowed roundtail dinghy proved an excellent servant but can't really carry the 4 stroke outboard all that well. The Avon 3.1 I bought cheaply earlier in the year has proved to be just too big.
So we want a transom dinghy around the 2.7m mark with three chambers. Not easy to find these days but I've found one. And I want to fit a pair of lightweight removable davits in due course. The dinghy will get flip down transom wheels on it as carrying the damn thing up the beach nearly killed us!
As for the outboards, the borrowed Mariner was reliable and effective (but as mentioned too heavy for the roundtail) and our 2 stroke Tohatsu went from being ultra-reliable to refusing to start at all at whim. It needs a major strip down and overhaul of the fuel system. It'll get it before next year. The bigger Mariner 4 stroke I acquired from a friend also needs sorting out as I plan to continue to carry both outboards.
All of this will have to wait on finance being available. We are very nearly skint and by the time we've had one final excursion for ten days or so next month and had Pagan hauled ashore for the winter the sailing coffers will be empty.
My mission from September, for as long as necessary, will be to earn some serious pennies to refill the coffers and then save up the money to do the ongoing improvements and upgrades to Pagan and the kit we carry.
And as that is likely to involve me being back in proper gainful full time employment for a couple of years or more, we are going to be back to holiday sailing and weekending from next year for the forseeable future.
And that leads to one final decision that has been taken - when we relaunch next spring we'll be going back onto a swinging mooring and giving up the mud berth. It has served it's purpose for the last three or four years but the logisitical problems of only being able to get on and off the berth on Spring tides don't sit well with getting good use from the boat when we can only take a maximum of two weeks holiday at a time.
Oh and a final final bit of thinking is that we're thinking of not going very far afield next year. We, and especially Jane (unprompted), have identified a need to improve our skills in a number of areas. Jane in particular feels she really needs to get to grips with helming the boat when we're anchoring or picking up buoys (but probably not, she says, in the confines of marinas!). We've talked about having a year where we devote ourselves to learning to handle the boat better and as yet we haven't done it. So maybe next year will be the year
The leg down channel was not, it has to be said, a pleasure cruise. Dover to Sovereign Harbour was, for the second year running, particularly frustrating. Pagan doesn't much enjoy bashing into an F5/6 on the nose with a steep Channel chop knocking the stuffing out of her forward progress. And frankly the crew didn't enjoy it much either.
In hindsight, it was probably a little too ambitious to plan to make St Peter Port in a week. Do-able, certainly, but it put pressure on that we could have done without. That said, the overnight passage from Eastbourne to Guernsey was very satisfying (I do like night sailing!). Another time I'd make sure we had a more relaxed schedule.
Once in the Channel Islands, we were blessed with a sustained spell of astonishingly good weather. There was, perhaps, a little bit too much wind from the North East in the first week (and oh how we could have done with that wind a week earlier!) but it did little to affect our enjoyment.
It did though get a bit too windy for comfort over the middle weekend but we'd wisely cut and run back to St. Peter Port on the Thursday. That proved to be a very astute decision as St. Peter Port filled up rapidly on the Friday with everybody wanting to get into shelter over the weekend.
As detailed in the earlier posts, we felt we hadn't done Sark justice and changed our plans to go back a second time rather than move on to Jersey and St. Malo. That too proved to be good judgement. Sark is without a doubt magical.
We missed out on Herm but we didn't mind. It gives us an excuse, as if we needed one, to go back another time!
We spent a lot of time in the two marinas, more perhaps than we envisaged. But it's impossible to regret that. St. Peter Port is lively, vibrant and full of places to go, places to eat, places to drink and places to shop. Beaucette is peaceful, sheltered and has a superb restaurant (but nothing else). Each in their own way is to be highly recommended.
And now for the twist.
Swell
Only in Beaucette, and in St. Peter Port when the cill was uncovered, were we ever entirely free of the influence of a (mostly) Southerly swell. No matter what the wind conditions, no matter what the wind direction, no matter what the tide was doing, the swell made it's presence felt the whole time.
With the exception of the one night on the buoy at Havre Gosselin (Sark) it was never particularly bad or uncomfortable but it was always there. And we had near ideal weather conditions. Even so, there were times when even in the shelter of Victoria Marina in St. Peter Port the boat was swaying about sufficiently to make life on board slightly annoying if not downright unpleasant.
And I would reckon that if the wind blew up for a spell there is probably nowhere in the Balliwick of Guernsey which could be described as fully sheltered at all states of the sea and tide. It isn't a reason to avoid the islands but it does have to be considered - especially in high season when the availability of inner marina berths is at a premium. Out on the outer pontoons at St. Peter Port over the middle weekend the moored vessels were plunging about sufficiently to make life damned uncomfortable.
Despite changing our plans half way through the cruise, the crew changes worked smoothly. I am most impressed by the service provided by Flybe - being able to go onto their website and quickly change flights at minimal cost (anything up to two hours before flying although we did it several days ahead) made the change of plans very easy to execute.
The return leg was definitely more of a holiday than the outward leg. With neither myself nor Richard needing to be back for ten to twelve days, we were able to take a bit of time at the nice places along the way. Unfortunately we also had to take a bit of time at my least favourite port due to the weather.
So would we go back to the Channel Islands again? Hell yes! But there is a but. I would want to have at least six weeks to do it - two out, two there (minimum) and two back. And preferably longer in the middle. And it has to be acknowledged that on another visit the weather might not be as good, indeed it's unlikely it would be as good, which could make all the difference.
Looking ahead, we learnt a great deal from this cruise.
The first is that we simply have to upgrade Pagan's anchoring gear. Hauling 45m of somewhat rusty chain aboard with the old manual windlass was a killer job. We want, as soon as we can afford it, a self launching anchor, new (and longer) chain and an electric windlass.
The second is that we need to sort out our dinghy and outboard(s). The borrowed roundtail dinghy proved an excellent servant but can't really carry the 4 stroke outboard all that well. The Avon 3.1 I bought cheaply earlier in the year has proved to be just too big.
So we want a transom dinghy around the 2.7m mark with three chambers. Not easy to find these days but I've found one. And I want to fit a pair of lightweight removable davits in due course. The dinghy will get flip down transom wheels on it as carrying the damn thing up the beach nearly killed us!
As for the outboards, the borrowed Mariner was reliable and effective (but as mentioned too heavy for the roundtail) and our 2 stroke Tohatsu went from being ultra-reliable to refusing to start at all at whim. It needs a major strip down and overhaul of the fuel system. It'll get it before next year. The bigger Mariner 4 stroke I acquired from a friend also needs sorting out as I plan to continue to carry both outboards.
All of this will have to wait on finance being available. We are very nearly skint and by the time we've had one final excursion for ten days or so next month and had Pagan hauled ashore for the winter the sailing coffers will be empty.
My mission from September, for as long as necessary, will be to earn some serious pennies to refill the coffers and then save up the money to do the ongoing improvements and upgrades to Pagan and the kit we carry.
And as that is likely to involve me being back in proper gainful full time employment for a couple of years or more, we are going to be back to holiday sailing and weekending from next year for the forseeable future.
And that leads to one final decision that has been taken - when we relaunch next spring we'll be going back onto a swinging mooring and giving up the mud berth. It has served it's purpose for the last three or four years but the logisitical problems of only being able to get on and off the berth on Spring tides don't sit well with getting good use from the boat when we can only take a maximum of two weeks holiday at a time.
Oh and a final final bit of thinking is that we're thinking of not going very far afield next year. We, and especially Jane (unprompted), have identified a need to improve our skills in a number of areas. Jane in particular feels she really needs to get to grips with helming the boat when we're anchoring or picking up buoys (but probably not, she says, in the confines of marinas!). We've talked about having a year where we devote ourselves to learning to handle the boat better and as yet we haven't done it. So maybe next year will be the year
2018 Summer Cruise - Homeward bound
I'm going to keep this one fairly brief (you'll be relieved to read!) ...
The girls flew out from Guernsey on the Monday morning leaving Rich and I to get in some shopping and make ready to leave on Tuesday.
Leave we duly did making a decent passage to Longy Bay on the South side of Alderney where we'd hoped to anchor. To my annoyance, somebody has laid two "private" moorings that occupy the whole of the decent anchorage area.
Being reluctant to pick up a mooring clearly marked as private, and equally reluctant to anchor in an area with unknown ground tackle just waiting to foul the anchor, we bailed out and headed around to the East of Alderney towards Braye.
Technically, we thus sailed, or should I say motored, through the Alderney Race. In fact, I gingerly picked my way through the inshore rocks and shoals to avoid a line of offshore breakers and a long detour. In an area marked on the chart as "incompletely surveyed" this was a slightly edgy experience but I had taken into account that any shoals or isolated rocks would show up as a disturbance on the surface (the marked shoals and rocks could clearly be seen this way).
Arriving in Braye, we picked up one of the last four visitor mooring buoys. Within quarter of an hour the other three were occupied by yachts that had come up through The Swinge. We'd snuck in ahead, just, which was a bit of a result! We might have been able to pick up a buoy on the other side of the harbour, although the available depth over there might have been an issue otherwise it would have had to be down with the hook and lie to our own gear.
Conditions in Braye, which can be nasty, were very benign so we decided to stay put for a day. Then we discovered it was three nights for the price of two so we decided to make it two days!
Alderney is very different to the other islands in the Balliwick of Guernsey. Different archtecture, different atmoshphere, different scenery. I liked it!
Come Friday we made shift to get back across the Channel. We'd decided against heading along the North French coast due to the long legs between harbours and some doubts about the weather for the coming week. Off to the Solent was our decision.
We had a contretemp with a freighter heading East who was clearly not keeping a good watch. As the stand on vessel, it was my legal obligation to stand on until it was obvious the other vessel was not making an effort to avoid a collision. When we started to get too close for comfort I called the vessel up on the VHF to clarify his intentions and, somewhat to my surprise, got a reply.
The reply was less than reassuring. The voice on the other end sounded confused and unaware of any of the traffic around him. He stated his intention to maintain his course and speed and when I pointed out that this would result in a collision with the yacht off his starboard bow (us) he replied that he couldn't see us! I responded that I was rather surprised by this as we were barely 1.5 miles apart, we were transmitting on AIS, our radar was active (meaning we would definitely show up on his radar) and the visibility was perfect.
After a further confused sounding response, where he proposed that we BOTH alter course to starboard (which would have resulted in his running us down from astern instead of from the side. Not exactly an improvement) I got authoratitive about matters and made it VERY clear that he should do NOTHING, maintaining his course and speed, and that I would circle around and pass astern of him.
Thankfully he got that message and the incident passed without further ado but it was a worrying indication of the reported suspicions that smaller cargo vessels are increasingly so poorly manned as to be unable to keep a proper lookout.
It was blindingly obvious that the person who replied to my VHF call had zero situational awareness and that he was struggling to get a grip. One can only speculate whether he'd been asleep, texting on his phone having just got a signal for the first time in weeks, or doing something else. What he clearly had not been doing was looking out of the window, monitoring his radar or his AIS
Anyway, rant over and on to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight we proceeded. The fun though wasn't over yet!
As we approached the Needles, Solent Coastguard put out a request for any vessel to assist a small speedboat broken down just off the Needles. A yacht somewhat closer than us responded and headed their way, nobody else chimed in at all (despite several more suitable vessels being in the vicinity). So I called up the Coasties and offered our assistance if required albeit we were around 40 minutes away from the incident. A few minutes later we were called back, thanked and released to continue our voyage.
Entering the Solent via the Needles channel was a first for me and it's an impressive sight. I suspect it would be rather less pleasant in unsettled weather but we still had sun, heat and not a lot of wind.
We arrived in Yarmouth and rafted up to a rather pretty yacht with very friendly owners. The next morning we moved to a finger berth. Although I could have had free nights in Lymington Yacht Haven, I fancied a visit to Yarmouth as I'd never been before by boat. Very nice it is too.
We probably should have moved on on Sunday but the Solent was wall to wall boats. Big boats, little boats, sailing boats, motor boats, jetskis, speedboats, dinghys. it was just boats everywhere. So we went to the pub again!
Come Monday morning we set off hoping to reach Eastbourne. However, Pagan was proving to be rather sluggish and we simply weren't making good speed through the water. At the start of the passage, the sea was like a mill pond but by late afternoon off Brighton it was building an increasingly annoying steep chop, the wind had got up and we were being chased by a cold front coming in rapidly from the West.
We gave up and bailed out into Brighton. Our first stop was the refuelling dock as it seemed sensible to take the chance to top up the tanks then we moved onto a finger berth. I offered to take a berth that would have our keel in the mud at low water to avoid the chaos that was the visitor berths. The marina staff were doing their best but the number of boats trying to get in was overwhelming the capacity of the availabe moorings and their ability to cope.
Brighton marina desperately needs dredging. It's been allowed to get into a parlous state and although some aspects (such as the toilet and shower facilities) are better than they used to be I do object to paying the same to visit Brighton as I pay to visit Soveriegn Harbour or Chichester where the facilities are fantastic and you can always get a good berth.
Grumble aside, we then had to stay in Brighton for a second day as the cold front and the following low pressure system blew through. It wasn't an absolute "no go" day but an examination of our hull below the waterline at low water had revealed a considerable amount of fouling. This accounted for our lack of get up and go and I felt it worth trying to shift some of it with the deck brush.
I also had a suspicion about the cooling water intake filter. Whilst we were by no means overheating and there was a reasonable amount of water being ejected from the wet exhaust, my instincts were telling me that it wasn't as much water as usual.
So we took the chance whilst in Brighton to have the basket filter out of the intake box and sure enough it was partially choked with weed. We also gave the air filter a clean while we were in the engine hole, a job I'd meant to do before we left several weeks ago that didn't get done. It wasn't desperate but it could do no harm. And some work with the deck brush shifted some of the weed.
Wednesday saw us make the relatively short hop from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour. We left with some hopes of perhaps making Dover but we were still lacking in the boat speed department. It was frustrating but there was no help for it. We were resigned to making Dover on Thursday and then having to split the final leg with a stop at Ramsgate on Friday.
To cut a long story short, we did indeed make Dover on Thursday and in fairly good time too. Pagan had suddenly found at least some of her missing get up and go. I have a feeling we had something, perhaps weed, foulding the prop as the prop wash on the run from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour had struck me as being unusually violent and on this run it was back to something like normal.
That, and other considerations, put us in the mood to stop idling about and get the hammer down on Friday. There was a reasonable chance of getting Pagan back onto her mud berth Friday evening and that would be the last chance for over a week. So get the hammer down we did and happily we made the passage from Dover to Fambridge almost exactly as planned.
Less happily, the tide failed to make by well over a foot and Pagan will have to lurk on the river pontoon for a week until Jane and I can go down next weekend and move her
The girls flew out from Guernsey on the Monday morning leaving Rich and I to get in some shopping and make ready to leave on Tuesday.
Leave we duly did making a decent passage to Longy Bay on the South side of Alderney where we'd hoped to anchor. To my annoyance, somebody has laid two "private" moorings that occupy the whole of the decent anchorage area.
Being reluctant to pick up a mooring clearly marked as private, and equally reluctant to anchor in an area with unknown ground tackle just waiting to foul the anchor, we bailed out and headed around to the East of Alderney towards Braye.
Technically, we thus sailed, or should I say motored, through the Alderney Race. In fact, I gingerly picked my way through the inshore rocks and shoals to avoid a line of offshore breakers and a long detour. In an area marked on the chart as "incompletely surveyed" this was a slightly edgy experience but I had taken into account that any shoals or isolated rocks would show up as a disturbance on the surface (the marked shoals and rocks could clearly be seen this way).
Arriving in Braye, we picked up one of the last four visitor mooring buoys. Within quarter of an hour the other three were occupied by yachts that had come up through The Swinge. We'd snuck in ahead, just, which was a bit of a result! We might have been able to pick up a buoy on the other side of the harbour, although the available depth over there might have been an issue otherwise it would have had to be down with the hook and lie to our own gear.
Conditions in Braye, which can be nasty, were very benign so we decided to stay put for a day. Then we discovered it was three nights for the price of two so we decided to make it two days!
Alderney is very different to the other islands in the Balliwick of Guernsey. Different archtecture, different atmoshphere, different scenery. I liked it!
Come Friday we made shift to get back across the Channel. We'd decided against heading along the North French coast due to the long legs between harbours and some doubts about the weather for the coming week. Off to the Solent was our decision.
We had a contretemp with a freighter heading East who was clearly not keeping a good watch. As the stand on vessel, it was my legal obligation to stand on until it was obvious the other vessel was not making an effort to avoid a collision. When we started to get too close for comfort I called the vessel up on the VHF to clarify his intentions and, somewhat to my surprise, got a reply.
The reply was less than reassuring. The voice on the other end sounded confused and unaware of any of the traffic around him. He stated his intention to maintain his course and speed and when I pointed out that this would result in a collision with the yacht off his starboard bow (us) he replied that he couldn't see us! I responded that I was rather surprised by this as we were barely 1.5 miles apart, we were transmitting on AIS, our radar was active (meaning we would definitely show up on his radar) and the visibility was perfect.
After a further confused sounding response, where he proposed that we BOTH alter course to starboard (which would have resulted in his running us down from astern instead of from the side. Not exactly an improvement) I got authoratitive about matters and made it VERY clear that he should do NOTHING, maintaining his course and speed, and that I would circle around and pass astern of him.
Thankfully he got that message and the incident passed without further ado but it was a worrying indication of the reported suspicions that smaller cargo vessels are increasingly so poorly manned as to be unable to keep a proper lookout.
It was blindingly obvious that the person who replied to my VHF call had zero situational awareness and that he was struggling to get a grip. One can only speculate whether he'd been asleep, texting on his phone having just got a signal for the first time in weeks, or doing something else. What he clearly had not been doing was looking out of the window, monitoring his radar or his AIS
Anyway, rant over and on to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight we proceeded. The fun though wasn't over yet!
As we approached the Needles, Solent Coastguard put out a request for any vessel to assist a small speedboat broken down just off the Needles. A yacht somewhat closer than us responded and headed their way, nobody else chimed in at all (despite several more suitable vessels being in the vicinity). So I called up the Coasties and offered our assistance if required albeit we were around 40 minutes away from the incident. A few minutes later we were called back, thanked and released to continue our voyage.
We arrived in Yarmouth and rafted up to a rather pretty yacht with very friendly owners. The next morning we moved to a finger berth. Although I could have had free nights in Lymington Yacht Haven, I fancied a visit to Yarmouth as I'd never been before by boat. Very nice it is too.
We probably should have moved on on Sunday but the Solent was wall to wall boats. Big boats, little boats, sailing boats, motor boats, jetskis, speedboats, dinghys. it was just boats everywhere. So we went to the pub again!
Come Monday morning we set off hoping to reach Eastbourne. However, Pagan was proving to be rather sluggish and we simply weren't making good speed through the water. At the start of the passage, the sea was like a mill pond but by late afternoon off Brighton it was building an increasingly annoying steep chop, the wind had got up and we were being chased by a cold front coming in rapidly from the West.
We gave up and bailed out into Brighton. Our first stop was the refuelling dock as it seemed sensible to take the chance to top up the tanks then we moved onto a finger berth. I offered to take a berth that would have our keel in the mud at low water to avoid the chaos that was the visitor berths. The marina staff were doing their best but the number of boats trying to get in was overwhelming the capacity of the availabe moorings and their ability to cope.
Brighton marina desperately needs dredging. It's been allowed to get into a parlous state and although some aspects (such as the toilet and shower facilities) are better than they used to be I do object to paying the same to visit Brighton as I pay to visit Soveriegn Harbour or Chichester where the facilities are fantastic and you can always get a good berth.
Grumble aside, we then had to stay in Brighton for a second day as the cold front and the following low pressure system blew through. It wasn't an absolute "no go" day but an examination of our hull below the waterline at low water had revealed a considerable amount of fouling. This accounted for our lack of get up and go and I felt it worth trying to shift some of it with the deck brush.
I also had a suspicion about the cooling water intake filter. Whilst we were by no means overheating and there was a reasonable amount of water being ejected from the wet exhaust, my instincts were telling me that it wasn't as much water as usual.
So we took the chance whilst in Brighton to have the basket filter out of the intake box and sure enough it was partially choked with weed. We also gave the air filter a clean while we were in the engine hole, a job I'd meant to do before we left several weeks ago that didn't get done. It wasn't desperate but it could do no harm. And some work with the deck brush shifted some of the weed.
Wednesday saw us make the relatively short hop from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour. We left with some hopes of perhaps making Dover but we were still lacking in the boat speed department. It was frustrating but there was no help for it. We were resigned to making Dover on Thursday and then having to split the final leg with a stop at Ramsgate on Friday.
To cut a long story short, we did indeed make Dover on Thursday and in fairly good time too. Pagan had suddenly found at least some of her missing get up and go. I have a feeling we had something, perhaps weed, foulding the prop as the prop wash on the run from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour had struck me as being unusually violent and on this run it was back to something like normal.
That, and other considerations, put us in the mood to stop idling about and get the hammer down on Friday. There was a reasonable chance of getting Pagan back onto her mud berth Friday evening and that would be the last chance for over a week. So get the hammer down we did and happily we made the passage from Dover to Fambridge almost exactly as planned.
Less happily, the tide failed to make by well over a foot and Pagan will have to lurk on the river pontoon for a week until Jane and I can go down next weekend and move her
Thursday, 19 July 2018
Thu 19th July passage plan
Departed Sovereign Harbour 06:40UT towards Ramsgate eta 19:00UT (latest 21:00UT)
Alternate Dover eta 17:00UT (latest 20:00UT)
Alternate Dover eta 17:00UT (latest 20:00UT)
Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Foul tides, foul bottom ... weeeeeeeed.
On my original outline plan for the cruise, today is the day we should have been back in Fambridge. Obviously, we're not! This is not a problem and I'd always allowed for the possibility we might be a few days adrift. I was, and remain, keen to minimise the amount of "sailing to a deadline" as that always leads to a lot of motoring, a slightly stressed crew and sometimes poor decisions (such as going out when the conditions are beyond your comfort level - although I will never sail if the conditions are going to be seriously iffy).
So I have no regrets about the decision to wait out the weather for a day here in Sovereign Harbour, and yesterday was definitely a day to stay in port (solid F5 rising F6 with, by the afternoon, getting on for a metre of swell and wave action from the South West. It would have been no fun at all)..
Nor can I regret the decision earlier to avoid the Solent madness and stay in Yarmouth over the weekend or, for that matter, the earlier still decision to have a full day in Alderney. Those decisions were good decisions at the time based on the weather forecast we had for the coming week which did not include the cold front that brought yesterday's "no go" conditions.
A further factor has put a slight crimp in my plans - Pagan has developed a significant amount of fouling below the waterline. I didn't notice anything significant during our time in the Channel Islands nor did it become evident on the passages to Alderney and then onwards to Yarmouth but a distinct loss of performance was evident on the run from Yarmouth to Brighton.
We are, and it's significant, at least half a knot slower and possibly as much as a knot slower than I would normally expect. The effect on Monday was to put us into Brighton when I had realistically expected Eastbourne to be feasible (although had we been able to get a berth we'd have aimed for Newhaven but that'a another story).
We just were not going quite fast enough to get there at a sensible time. Whereas I had expected to carry a fair tide all the way to Beachy Head, if not beyond, it was on the turn when we cut and run for the nearest harbour having had enough.
The situation was not helped by my unwillingness to pile on the revs and burn diesel to compensate. I had a growing suspicion that all was not quite well in the engine cooling department. Whilst there was, to the casual eye, plenty of water being ejected from the wet exhaust my growing familiarity with the boat had me a niggling feeling that it wasn't as much as usual. I also felt that perhaps the exhaust noise was more than normal too (another sign of a lack of water).
So I suspected that we had a partially blocked intake filter. Not sufficiently blocked to make stopping and investigating at sea necessary but the suspicion was enough to make me unwilling to use high revs and risk overheating our venerable Mercedes OM636.
My suspicions were justified yesterday when we removed the filter boc cap and found the cage filter partially blocked with weed. Whilst we were down in the engine bay, I also removed and cleaned the air filter (a job I really should have done before we left but it didn't seem too bad at the time) as it was starting to look a bit claggy. It certainly wasn't critical but it was a fifteen minute job and it won't hurt.
There's not a lot we can do about the weed on the bottom other than live with it. That basically means passage planning at 4 knots instead of 5 knots so that we're not chasing a short schedule.
That brings me to the other "problem". A consequence of being several days behind my original draft plan is that the optimum passage times for a fair tide are going awau from us. The tide times progress day by day getting around 50 minutes to an hour later each day. Obviously, this means the tidal stream direction changes from (in the Channel) an east flowing tide to a west flowing tide and back again an hour later each day.
This means that whereas (for example) on Monday the best time to leave Sovereign Harbour to go to Dover would have been 07:00 with an eta of 19:00 it's now 09:00 with an eta of 21:00. And that's before we knock a knot off our speed. And it doesn't take into account that we had to accept a damn near drying berth here in Brighton as the visitor berths were complete and utter chaos. (That's another story I'll come back to later). The effect of that is that we can't leave here at the optimum time today (09:00UT) as that is low water and it will be at least an hour and a half, possibly two hours, later before there's enough water to get out of the finger berth.
We could, of course, leave early but that would mean punching a foul tide for at least three hours. With a weedy bottom. It would be slow, tedious and burn copious quantities of diesel. I think not.
So the upshot of all that is that reaching Dover today from Brighton is not an attractive plan. It could be done and if it had to be done it would be done but the key factor is that we do not HAVE to be back in Fambridge until Saturday (and it would not be a total disaster if we weren't back until Sunday). I'd like to be back sooner but I don't HAVE to be back sooner. It's that old monster of deadline sailing rearing it's ugly head again.
So today we're short hopping around Beachy Head to Sovereign Harbour. That will take three to four hours (some guesswork is involved until I've assessed how fast we can realistically expect to go through the water) which, of course, takes three or four hours off the run from there to Dover tomorrow.
Dover back to Fambridge, a passage I'd normally consider perfectly do-able in Pagan, might prove to be similarly afflicted by a reduction in average speed as Brighton to Dover. So we may end up short hoppng from Dover to Ramsgate to cut the long passage into a third and two thirds again.
That would get us back in the Crouch on Saturday which is acceptable (although I would really have liked to get home this coming weekend) but too late to get back on our berth. Which then raises the prospect of there being no space on the river pontoon when we get back. With loads of kit to offload.
So we might have to go into Burnham for the night and move upriver when space appears on Sunday or even Monday. Rich can hop the two stops on the train to fetch his car and get off home from Burnham without too much inconvenience (although he would prefer to travel on Satuday and have a day at home before work on Monday). I'll happily single hand the hour or so back upriver.
Much depends on how we go today. I'll take the hit and burn the diesel as long as I'm happy that we're not going to strain the engine and if we can crank up the revs and regain our lost speed then getting back from Dover on Friday becomes feasible again.
Once back in Fambridge I have another dilemma. Looking ahead, the next opportunity to get Pagan onto her berth is a week on Saturday. But if I don't make it home this weekend I definitely want to be home next weekend. And from there it's only two and a half weeks before I'd have to travel down to Fambridge a few days ahead of our late August ten days aboard in order to get her off the mud again.
Leaving her on the river pontoon for that length of time at this time of year might cause some grumbles (as we'd be blocking a space that could be used by paying visitors) so I'm contemplating seeing if there's a mooring free that we could use for a few weeks.
Once we're back from our August mini-cruise, which will be local pottering about, that's effectively our sailing for this year over. There's weekends available at the back end of September and late October when the tide would be right to get on and off the berth but we've used up Jane's holidays getting the three two week breaks in the Spring and Summer.
So I'm contemplating having Pagan out of the water fairly early in September, especially as there's only a limited amount I can do about the fouling with her afloat, and getting stuck in to the job hunt asap. From there we can make plans for carrying out the work that either needs doing or we want done and know where we're at for next year.
And my mind is all but made up (I just need to persuade Jane) about going back on a swinging mooring next year. The mud berth is great for the convenience of being able to simply hop straight on the boat when we arrive in Fambridge by car but it's a massive pain in the backside when it comes to planning to go out and use the boat. It only works now because my time is totally flexible (especially right now when I'm effectively unemployed!), it is going to be a massive crimp in our style if, as I'm hoping to do for a year or three, I get a "proper" job with a steady income.
Nothing above is a disaster. It's simply musings on options so that I've got my ducks lined up in a neat row and can choose which one to chuck in the pot and cook.
So I have no regrets about the decision to wait out the weather for a day here in Sovereign Harbour, and yesterday was definitely a day to stay in port (solid F5 rising F6 with, by the afternoon, getting on for a metre of swell and wave action from the South West. It would have been no fun at all)..
Nor can I regret the decision earlier to avoid the Solent madness and stay in Yarmouth over the weekend or, for that matter, the earlier still decision to have a full day in Alderney. Those decisions were good decisions at the time based on the weather forecast we had for the coming week which did not include the cold front that brought yesterday's "no go" conditions.
A further factor has put a slight crimp in my plans - Pagan has developed a significant amount of fouling below the waterline. I didn't notice anything significant during our time in the Channel Islands nor did it become evident on the passages to Alderney and then onwards to Yarmouth but a distinct loss of performance was evident on the run from Yarmouth to Brighton.
We are, and it's significant, at least half a knot slower and possibly as much as a knot slower than I would normally expect. The effect on Monday was to put us into Brighton when I had realistically expected Eastbourne to be feasible (although had we been able to get a berth we'd have aimed for Newhaven but that'a another story).
We just were not going quite fast enough to get there at a sensible time. Whereas I had expected to carry a fair tide all the way to Beachy Head, if not beyond, it was on the turn when we cut and run for the nearest harbour having had enough.
The situation was not helped by my unwillingness to pile on the revs and burn diesel to compensate. I had a growing suspicion that all was not quite well in the engine cooling department. Whilst there was, to the casual eye, plenty of water being ejected from the wet exhaust my growing familiarity with the boat had me a niggling feeling that it wasn't as much as usual. I also felt that perhaps the exhaust noise was more than normal too (another sign of a lack of water).
So I suspected that we had a partially blocked intake filter. Not sufficiently blocked to make stopping and investigating at sea necessary but the suspicion was enough to make me unwilling to use high revs and risk overheating our venerable Mercedes OM636.
My suspicions were justified yesterday when we removed the filter boc cap and found the cage filter partially blocked with weed. Whilst we were down in the engine bay, I also removed and cleaned the air filter (a job I really should have done before we left but it didn't seem too bad at the time) as it was starting to look a bit claggy. It certainly wasn't critical but it was a fifteen minute job and it won't hurt.
There's not a lot we can do about the weed on the bottom other than live with it. That basically means passage planning at 4 knots instead of 5 knots so that we're not chasing a short schedule.
That brings me to the other "problem". A consequence of being several days behind my original draft plan is that the optimum passage times for a fair tide are going awau from us. The tide times progress day by day getting around 50 minutes to an hour later each day. Obviously, this means the tidal stream direction changes from (in the Channel) an east flowing tide to a west flowing tide and back again an hour later each day.
This means that whereas (for example) on Monday the best time to leave Sovereign Harbour to go to Dover would have been 07:00 with an eta of 19:00 it's now 09:00 with an eta of 21:00. And that's before we knock a knot off our speed. And it doesn't take into account that we had to accept a damn near drying berth here in Brighton as the visitor berths were complete and utter chaos. (That's another story I'll come back to later). The effect of that is that we can't leave here at the optimum time today (09:00UT) as that is low water and it will be at least an hour and a half, possibly two hours, later before there's enough water to get out of the finger berth.
We could, of course, leave early but that would mean punching a foul tide for at least three hours. With a weedy bottom. It would be slow, tedious and burn copious quantities of diesel. I think not.
So the upshot of all that is that reaching Dover today from Brighton is not an attractive plan. It could be done and if it had to be done it would be done but the key factor is that we do not HAVE to be back in Fambridge until Saturday (and it would not be a total disaster if we weren't back until Sunday). I'd like to be back sooner but I don't HAVE to be back sooner. It's that old monster of deadline sailing rearing it's ugly head again.
So today we're short hopping around Beachy Head to Sovereign Harbour. That will take three to four hours (some guesswork is involved until I've assessed how fast we can realistically expect to go through the water) which, of course, takes three or four hours off the run from there to Dover tomorrow.
Dover back to Fambridge, a passage I'd normally consider perfectly do-able in Pagan, might prove to be similarly afflicted by a reduction in average speed as Brighton to Dover. So we may end up short hoppng from Dover to Ramsgate to cut the long passage into a third and two thirds again.
That would get us back in the Crouch on Saturday which is acceptable (although I would really have liked to get home this coming weekend) but too late to get back on our berth. Which then raises the prospect of there being no space on the river pontoon when we get back. With loads of kit to offload.
So we might have to go into Burnham for the night and move upriver when space appears on Sunday or even Monday. Rich can hop the two stops on the train to fetch his car and get off home from Burnham without too much inconvenience (although he would prefer to travel on Satuday and have a day at home before work on Monday). I'll happily single hand the hour or so back upriver.
Much depends on how we go today. I'll take the hit and burn the diesel as long as I'm happy that we're not going to strain the engine and if we can crank up the revs and regain our lost speed then getting back from Dover on Friday becomes feasible again.
Once back in Fambridge I have another dilemma. Looking ahead, the next opportunity to get Pagan onto her berth is a week on Saturday. But if I don't make it home this weekend I definitely want to be home next weekend. And from there it's only two and a half weeks before I'd have to travel down to Fambridge a few days ahead of our late August ten days aboard in order to get her off the mud again.
Leaving her on the river pontoon for that length of time at this time of year might cause some grumbles (as we'd be blocking a space that could be used by paying visitors) so I'm contemplating seeing if there's a mooring free that we could use for a few weeks.
Once we're back from our August mini-cruise, which will be local pottering about, that's effectively our sailing for this year over. There's weekends available at the back end of September and late October when the tide would be right to get on and off the berth but we've used up Jane's holidays getting the three two week breaks in the Spring and Summer.
So I'm contemplating having Pagan out of the water fairly early in September, especially as there's only a limited amount I can do about the fouling with her afloat, and getting stuck in to the job hunt asap. From there we can make plans for carrying out the work that either needs doing or we want done and know where we're at for next year.
And my mind is all but made up (I just need to persuade Jane) about going back on a swinging mooring next year. The mud berth is great for the convenience of being able to simply hop straight on the boat when we arrive in Fambridge by car but it's a massive pain in the backside when it comes to planning to go out and use the boat. It only works now because my time is totally flexible (especially right now when I'm effectively unemployed!), it is going to be a massive crimp in our style if, as I'm hoping to do for a year or three, I get a "proper" job with a steady income.
Nothing above is a disaster. It's simply musings on options so that I've got my ducks lined up in a neat row and can choose which one to chuck in the pot and cook.
Wed 18 July 2018 Passage Plan
Departing Brighton Marina between 10:00 and 11:00UT towards Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne eta 16:00UT
No alternates.
No alternates.
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
2018 Summer Cruise - Reboot Week
Apologies for the tardiness updating the blog, there just never seemed to be time! This will be the first of several catchup posts, this one covering the second week in the Channel Islands.
So when last we posted about our epic adventure we were in St. Peter Port planning to leave for an anchorage off Sark (having changed all the travel plans for the end of the week!).
We set out from St. Peter Port as soon as there was 2m of water over the cill and motored out of the harbour. To our utter delight and amazement we were immediately surrounded by a pod of dolphins swimming ahead, under and alongside the boat. It was magical but despite shooting off over a hundred photos we failed to get one single pic with a dolphin in it!
After a few hundred yards the dolphins left us and swam back to repeat the performance with the next boat to leave the harbour and we headed on towards the Muse Passage that cuts through the outlying rocks to the South of Herm.
The wind was more Easterly than forecast, what there was of it, and the seas were calm with just the usual Southerly swell (which seems to be a nigh permanent feature of the waters in the Channel Islands) so we decided to head for Havre Gosselin and try for one of the buoys we'd failed to get on last week.
After some very careful navigsation and helming to counter the strange tidal offsets (you go from being set off course by upwards of 40 degrees to Port to being set off course by 30 or more degress to Starboard three quarters of the way across for no apparent reason) we arrived at the moorings to find the two outer buoys available. Happy days!
Getting on a buoy meant we could go ashore right away - at anchor I won't go out of sight of the boat until we've been through a tidal cycle and I'm confident the anchor isn't going to drag. We'd inflated all bar the bow chamber of the dinghy and carried it on deck so all we had to do was blow that up, launch the dinghy and crane the outboard on.
The previous week, we'd used the borrowed Mariner 3.5 4 stroke outboard but we'd found it was a bit heavy for the (also borrowed) roundtail dinghy. So I dug the venerable old Tohatsu 2.5 2 stroke out of the locker and tried that. Last year it had been a bit unreliable but I'd given it a burn and a dose of nice clean petrol and it started well. It continued to run well, starting on the first pull of the cord, for the next two days (but it would go back to it's recalcitrant ways later as I shall describe in the next installment).
There's a neat little landing at Havre Gosselin and we tucked the dinghy in and left it afloat. More enthusiastic and probably fitter crews than us haul their dinghies out and up the steps but in the calm conditions I felt it would come to no harm left in the rock pool by the steps.
We were then faced with the climb up from the harbour to the top of the cliffs. It's not as precipitous and rough as the climb up from the beach to La Coupee but it's longer with more steps! 299 of them to be precise (according to the pilot book, we were in no fit state to count).
It's a pleasant walk along leafy tracks past occasional cottages and farmsteads to get to the main drag of cafes and tourist tat shops called The Avenue.
We had a nice wander, a beer or two and made our way back to the boat by early evening and those 299 steps again!
The next morning (Tuesday) we set off ashore again at a reasonable hour with plans for a whole day ashore. It was Jane's 21st birthday (again) so we chose Hathaways at La Seigneurie for a birthday lunch. Not too expensive, although not cheap, but very very good indeed. I greatly enjoyed a particulary fine bottled brew from the Sark micro-brewery called "Dark Monk". Something akin to a cross between a brown ale and a porter is the best description I can manage and it was lush! Sadly, it's only available on the island and none was to be had at the time.
That was followed by a walk around the very nice gardens.
Then it was back towards the Avenue and down to the harbours. There are two next door to each other. Creux harbour is the original drying harbour, thought to have been established by the 16th century settlers from Jersey who repopulated the then uninhabited island. Messeline Harbour was built in relatively modern times to provide all tide access for the island ferry and it now caters for the day visitors coming over from Guernsey.
To be honest, the walk down to the harbours, and particularly the walk back up the long steep hill, was a step too far and not really worth the effort. It left both Maire and I nursing painful knees which required the application of a liberal quantity of medicinal alcohol (best applied internally) when we got back to the top of the hill and staggered into the Bel Air Inn!
Back to the boat for a light tea and an early night after a fabulous day ashore. Sark is deservedly often called the jewel of the Channel Islands and with its unmade roads and complete absence of cars it's a real step back in time. There's a surprising amount to do and see and we by no means did and saw all of it.
We'd been fairly comfortable the first night on the buoy, a little bit of rolling around but nothing too much to handle, but the conditions changed (inexplicably but I've come to the conclusion that nobody really understands the seas around the islands) and within fifteen minutes of retiring to bed Jane and I were baling out of our cabin and setting up the pull out double in the saloon.
There was simply too much random motion and noise up forward (Maire seemed to suffer less in the aft cabin and managed an OK night's sleep) but close to the centre of motion in the saloon we slept fine. No point in being martyrs after all.
That up our minds made and we decided to go with the plan for the rest of the week that involved heading up to Beaucette Marina for a few days. The entrance into the marina is, like St. Peter Port, over a tidal cill but whereas St. Peter Port has a waiting pontoon in the outer harbour, at Beaucette there are a couple of buoys amidst a rock strewn area of shoals! So I planned our departure in order to arrive with the tide, which also meant (in theory at least) a fair tide or at worst a cross tide all the way there.
For a couple of hours on the leg across from Brecqhou to the Muse Passage we even managed to get the sails up and turn the motor off! That would prove to be the only time in the entire fortnight that the big white flappy things would get used. As we approached the passage, the wind dropped to the point where we couldn't make enough boat speed to counter the cross tide and we had to go back onto the motor for the rest of the trip.
The approach to Beaucette is not for the faint hearted!...
I willfully rejected the approach vector shown on the chart in favour of passing to the North of Grune Pierre, a drying rock, as I could see swirls and eddies on the marked approach that suggested some interesting stuff happening below the water. Our timing was spot on to go straight in and we were given a good berth which did involve backing Pagan in as we'd been told (for whatever reason) to go port side too. There was acres of space so I was quite happy to give it a go and it went off without a hitch.
Beaucette is as different from St. Peter Port as it possibly could be. Small, intimate and sheltered, it has none of the vibrancy, life and, let's be honest, noise, of it's bigger "rival" but it has peace, tranquility and charm by the bucket load.
The Restaurant at Beaucette is one of the most highly regarded in Guernsey and therefore very popular with locals and visitors alike so we booked a table for the following evening soon after we arrived (we'd have preferred Friday but that and Saturday were already fully booked).
The rest of the day, and the following day (Wednesday and Thursday) were spent in idle idleness before donning frocks and trousers (per choice and gender preference) for an superb meal ashore (nominally Jane's birthday dinner, albeit a few days late!). The prices are sensible for fine dining and the food fully justifies the price. Highly recommended if you're ever that way.
Come Friday and Jane and I planned a long walk around the headland to L'Ancresse Bay and L'Ancresse Common. The best preserved neolithic monuments on the island are to be found between the fairways of the Royal Guernsey Golf Club (there's no problem with access, it's public land, it just pays to watch out for flying golf balls!).
Maire had baled on the day as her knee was still giving grief so she elected to spend a day in the shade of the cockpit tent reading.
We set off with our expedition backpacks loaded down with water, cans of coke and snacks. The water and coke were in a cool bag with the fridge block and that successfully kept them cool until it all ran out and we had to resupply at a handy shop half way through the afternoon. It was seriously hot weather and keeping hydrated was essential.
We visited Fort Doyle and headed towards Fort le Plomb. Both of these Napoleonic era forts are accessible by the public at no charge. They are small but interesting, not least because of the adaptations the Germans made during their occupation of the islands.
Then it was on to L'Ancresse Bay
The bay is beautiful (its the Channel Islands, it's bound to be!) and surprisingly quiet.
We had an ice cream and then Jane went for a paddle to cool off her feet ...
On we trogged in the hot sunshine, it's a chore but it has to be done, to explore the prehistoric wonders hidden in the undergrowth of L'Ancresse Common.
The hidden delights were indeed well hidden and it took some time of wandering around before we all but stumbled upon the first objective.
This was La Varde, a neolithic passage grave (a.k.a. dolmen) that dates back at least 6,000 years. In it were found both burnt and unburnt human remains in at least two seperate phases.
The site is open and you can walk in without hindrance.
The passage is fairly simple as such things go but it is quite large.
Buried under the golf course landscaping is the ring of stones that would have once visibly surrounded the grave, probably forming the foundation of a mound (as we'd see later at a reconstructed dolmen).
Further fossicking about in the undergrowth led us to Les Fouaillages.
This monument is contemporary with the Dolmen and is descrbibed as a long burial mound. However, it is also said to have been an open site (not covered) with at least three areas of activity surrounded by an arrow shaped stone boundary.
It's like nothing I've seen or read about before and I have my doubts about it being a burial site at all (although in the acid soil that is characteristic of the island any bone in contact with the earth would not have survived). Without going into all the nitty gritty details, two things struck me.
One is that the site could actually have been a cremation / excarnation site. (Excarnation is the practice of leaving a body in the open allowing birds and animals to clean the flesh off the bones). The cremation remains and / or bones could then have been removed to passage grave.
The other is that the shape of the outer boundary resembles a typical flint arrowhead and, I think (I'll have to check) aligns with a solstice sunrise. I need to do more research into this one!
We then had a break from the prehistoric and enjoyed an ice cream on the beach. Jane decided to act her shoe size rather than her age and have a go on the swings!
Good swings they were too. Proper ones like when we were kids. Not the wimpy things they install these days.
Mind, I wish we'd had the rubber play area surfacing (made from recycled vehicle tyres by the way) back in the day. I might have a few less scars on my knees if we had!
We now wanted to get back across the top right hand corner of Guernsey to Bordeaux Harbour and given that it was a very hot day we elected to catch the bus back.
Except we didn't. The tourist guide claims that the bus service on the island is very simple and easy to use but it neglects to mention a few salient points.
The first is that they cleverly save money by only putting a bus stop sign on one side of the road. And the signs were on the side of the road heading away from where we wanted to go. It took us some time to catch on to that (by which time we'd walked most of the way anyway). It seems obvious in hindsight but at the time we got ourselves into a mental cul-de-sac about it.
The second is that the bus route map and timetable is far from simple to work out when you're not familiar with the geography and the mobile app (a wrapper around the website, I hate that) doesn't work at the detailed route planner level (I later found a way to make it work but too late).
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we decided to walk back by the shortest route on foot according to Google maps. It was only going to be a couple of miles, if that. Before setting off we replenished our water supplies (having set out with two bottles of water and two cans of coke, we were now dry).
It was an interesting and pleasant walk which as much as anything served to illustrate how built up, in a (mostly) picturesque way, the interior of the island is. Apart from a couple of small paddocks we seemed to be walking though one endless long village.
We arrived at Bordeaux Harbour to find there's nothing there. It's bascially a bay that dries at low water full of local boats moored up and not much else. So it was back to the prehistoric with a walk up the coast path and a cut inland to the Dehus dolmen.
It's worth a visit to Le Dehus if you're interested in such things as it gives an idea of how a dolmen (prehistoric passage grave remember) might have looked.
I say might have advisedly. The structure has been extensively rebuilt based on interpretations by 19th century antiquarians and early 20th century archeologists and there are known errors and who knows how many untold ones.
The tomb has a (possibly unique) world famous carving in one of the cap stones (the main roof stones over the large chamber at the end of the passage) known as "Le Gardien du Tombea". This has been interpreted as a bearded male figure with a head dress carrying a bow, possibly a representation of Orion. Other carved capstones have been found in France but usually with female figures.
I couldn't get a good photo of the whole carving but I did get a fair image of the head. If you're interested http://www.megalithicguernsey.co.uk/le_dehus_dolmen/ contains a good digital image of the whole carving and more details.
You'll be relieved to read that we were prehistoriced out at this point and it was a short walk back to Beuacette. My legs were like jelly by the time we got back on board!
We idled the evening away in idyllic surroundings (well why would you not?).
I honestly can't remember what we did on Saturday! Not much I assume.
On Sunday, we departed Beaucette as soon as the tide was high enough over the cill and made our way back to St. Peter Port. We'd decided that the crew change would be much easier there and I also needed to restock some of the galley stores and there's no shop at Beaucette.
It's just a short hop down the coast made complex and interesting by the sheer number of solid lumps of granite that need avoiding!
Avoid the yacht traps we duly did and we were soon alongside in Victoria Marina for the third and last time.
The crew change went without a hitch and with my homeward crew Rich aboard, the girls off on the toy aeroplane (it has propellers, they expected jet engines!) back to home (and sadly work), and the supplies resupplied we were all set for the final leg of the cruise.
I'll write up more about our impressions of the Channel Islands later but suffice it to say for now that they are magic!
Although by the time I've written and posted this Pagan is half way back home this seems a fitting place to end this installment. My apologies for the length of the post!
So when last we posted about our epic adventure we were in St. Peter Port planning to leave for an anchorage off Sark (having changed all the travel plans for the end of the week!).
We set out from St. Peter Port as soon as there was 2m of water over the cill and motored out of the harbour. To our utter delight and amazement we were immediately surrounded by a pod of dolphins swimming ahead, under and alongside the boat. It was magical but despite shooting off over a hundred photos we failed to get one single pic with a dolphin in it!
After a few hundred yards the dolphins left us and swam back to repeat the performance with the next boat to leave the harbour and we headed on towards the Muse Passage that cuts through the outlying rocks to the South of Herm.
The wind was more Easterly than forecast, what there was of it, and the seas were calm with just the usual Southerly swell (which seems to be a nigh permanent feature of the waters in the Channel Islands) so we decided to head for Havre Gosselin and try for one of the buoys we'd failed to get on last week.
After some very careful navigsation and helming to counter the strange tidal offsets (you go from being set off course by upwards of 40 degrees to Port to being set off course by 30 or more degress to Starboard three quarters of the way across for no apparent reason) we arrived at the moorings to find the two outer buoys available. Happy days!
Getting on a buoy meant we could go ashore right away - at anchor I won't go out of sight of the boat until we've been through a tidal cycle and I'm confident the anchor isn't going to drag. We'd inflated all bar the bow chamber of the dinghy and carried it on deck so all we had to do was blow that up, launch the dinghy and crane the outboard on.
The previous week, we'd used the borrowed Mariner 3.5 4 stroke outboard but we'd found it was a bit heavy for the (also borrowed) roundtail dinghy. So I dug the venerable old Tohatsu 2.5 2 stroke out of the locker and tried that. Last year it had been a bit unreliable but I'd given it a burn and a dose of nice clean petrol and it started well. It continued to run well, starting on the first pull of the cord, for the next two days (but it would go back to it's recalcitrant ways later as I shall describe in the next installment).
We were then faced with the climb up from the harbour to the top of the cliffs. It's not as precipitous and rough as the climb up from the beach to La Coupee but it's longer with more steps! 299 of them to be precise (according to the pilot book, we were in no fit state to count).
It's a pleasant walk along leafy tracks past occasional cottages and farmsteads to get to the main drag of cafes and tourist tat shops called The Avenue.
We had a nice wander, a beer or two and made our way back to the boat by early evening and those 299 steps again!
The next morning (Tuesday) we set off ashore again at a reasonable hour with plans for a whole day ashore. It was Jane's 21st birthday (again) so we chose Hathaways at La Seigneurie for a birthday lunch. Not too expensive, although not cheap, but very very good indeed. I greatly enjoyed a particulary fine bottled brew from the Sark micro-brewery called "Dark Monk". Something akin to a cross between a brown ale and a porter is the best description I can manage and it was lush! Sadly, it's only available on the island and none was to be had at the time.That was followed by a walk around the very nice gardens.
Then it was back towards the Avenue and down to the harbours. There are two next door to each other. Creux harbour is the original drying harbour, thought to have been established by the 16th century settlers from Jersey who repopulated the then uninhabited island. Messeline Harbour was built in relatively modern times to provide all tide access for the island ferry and it now caters for the day visitors coming over from Guernsey.
To be honest, the walk down to the harbours, and particularly the walk back up the long steep hill, was a step too far and not really worth the effort. It left both Maire and I nursing painful knees which required the application of a liberal quantity of medicinal alcohol (best applied internally) when we got back to the top of the hill and staggered into the Bel Air Inn!
Back to the boat for a light tea and an early night after a fabulous day ashore. Sark is deservedly often called the jewel of the Channel Islands and with its unmade roads and complete absence of cars it's a real step back in time. There's a surprising amount to do and see and we by no means did and saw all of it.
We'd been fairly comfortable the first night on the buoy, a little bit of rolling around but nothing too much to handle, but the conditions changed (inexplicably but I've come to the conclusion that nobody really understands the seas around the islands) and within fifteen minutes of retiring to bed Jane and I were baling out of our cabin and setting up the pull out double in the saloon.
There was simply too much random motion and noise up forward (Maire seemed to suffer less in the aft cabin and managed an OK night's sleep) but close to the centre of motion in the saloon we slept fine. No point in being martyrs after all.
That up our minds made and we decided to go with the plan for the rest of the week that involved heading up to Beaucette Marina for a few days. The entrance into the marina is, like St. Peter Port, over a tidal cill but whereas St. Peter Port has a waiting pontoon in the outer harbour, at Beaucette there are a couple of buoys amidst a rock strewn area of shoals! So I planned our departure in order to arrive with the tide, which also meant (in theory at least) a fair tide or at worst a cross tide all the way there.
For a couple of hours on the leg across from Brecqhou to the Muse Passage we even managed to get the sails up and turn the motor off! That would prove to be the only time in the entire fortnight that the big white flappy things would get used. As we approached the passage, the wind dropped to the point where we couldn't make enough boat speed to counter the cross tide and we had to go back onto the motor for the rest of the trip.
The approach to Beaucette is not for the faint hearted!...
I willfully rejected the approach vector shown on the chart in favour of passing to the North of Grune Pierre, a drying rock, as I could see swirls and eddies on the marked approach that suggested some interesting stuff happening below the water. Our timing was spot on to go straight in and we were given a good berth which did involve backing Pagan in as we'd been told (for whatever reason) to go port side too. There was acres of space so I was quite happy to give it a go and it went off without a hitch.
Beaucette is as different from St. Peter Port as it possibly could be. Small, intimate and sheltered, it has none of the vibrancy, life and, let's be honest, noise, of it's bigger "rival" but it has peace, tranquility and charm by the bucket load.The Restaurant at Beaucette is one of the most highly regarded in Guernsey and therefore very popular with locals and visitors alike so we booked a table for the following evening soon after we arrived (we'd have preferred Friday but that and Saturday were already fully booked).
The rest of the day, and the following day (Wednesday and Thursday) were spent in idle idleness before donning frocks and trousers (per choice and gender preference) for an superb meal ashore (nominally Jane's birthday dinner, albeit a few days late!). The prices are sensible for fine dining and the food fully justifies the price. Highly recommended if you're ever that way.
Come Friday and Jane and I planned a long walk around the headland to L'Ancresse Bay and L'Ancresse Common. The best preserved neolithic monuments on the island are to be found between the fairways of the Royal Guernsey Golf Club (there's no problem with access, it's public land, it just pays to watch out for flying golf balls!).
Maire had baled on the day as her knee was still giving grief so she elected to spend a day in the shade of the cockpit tent reading.
We set off with our expedition backpacks loaded down with water, cans of coke and snacks. The water and coke were in a cool bag with the fridge block and that successfully kept them cool until it all ran out and we had to resupply at a handy shop half way through the afternoon. It was seriously hot weather and keeping hydrated was essential.
We visited Fort Doyle and headed towards Fort le Plomb. Both of these Napoleonic era forts are accessible by the public at no charge. They are small but interesting, not least because of the adaptations the Germans made during their occupation of the islands.
Then it was on to L'Ancresse Bay The bay is beautiful (its the Channel Islands, it's bound to be!) and surprisingly quiet.
We had an ice cream and then Jane went for a paddle to cool off her feet ...
On we trogged in the hot sunshine, it's a chore but it has to be done, to explore the prehistoric wonders hidden in the undergrowth of L'Ancresse Common.
The hidden delights were indeed well hidden and it took some time of wandering around before we all but stumbled upon the first objective.
This was La Varde, a neolithic passage grave (a.k.a. dolmen) that dates back at least 6,000 years. In it were found both burnt and unburnt human remains in at least two seperate phases.
The site is open and you can walk in without hindrance.The passage is fairly simple as such things go but it is quite large.
Buried under the golf course landscaping is the ring of stones that would have once visibly surrounded the grave, probably forming the foundation of a mound (as we'd see later at a reconstructed dolmen).
Further fossicking about in the undergrowth led us to Les Fouaillages.
This monument is contemporary with the Dolmen and is descrbibed as a long burial mound. However, it is also said to have been an open site (not covered) with at least three areas of activity surrounded by an arrow shaped stone boundary.
It's like nothing I've seen or read about before and I have my doubts about it being a burial site at all (although in the acid soil that is characteristic of the island any bone in contact with the earth would not have survived). Without going into all the nitty gritty details, two things struck me.
One is that the site could actually have been a cremation / excarnation site. (Excarnation is the practice of leaving a body in the open allowing birds and animals to clean the flesh off the bones). The cremation remains and / or bones could then have been removed to passage grave.
The other is that the shape of the outer boundary resembles a typical flint arrowhead and, I think (I'll have to check) aligns with a solstice sunrise. I need to do more research into this one!
We then had a break from the prehistoric and enjoyed an ice cream on the beach. Jane decided to act her shoe size rather than her age and have a go on the swings!Good swings they were too. Proper ones like when we were kids. Not the wimpy things they install these days.
Mind, I wish we'd had the rubber play area surfacing (made from recycled vehicle tyres by the way) back in the day. I might have a few less scars on my knees if we had!
We now wanted to get back across the top right hand corner of Guernsey to Bordeaux Harbour and given that it was a very hot day we elected to catch the bus back.
Except we didn't. The tourist guide claims that the bus service on the island is very simple and easy to use but it neglects to mention a few salient points.
The first is that they cleverly save money by only putting a bus stop sign on one side of the road. And the signs were on the side of the road heading away from where we wanted to go. It took us some time to catch on to that (by which time we'd walked most of the way anyway). It seems obvious in hindsight but at the time we got ourselves into a mental cul-de-sac about it.
The second is that the bus route map and timetable is far from simple to work out when you're not familiar with the geography and the mobile app (a wrapper around the website, I hate that) doesn't work at the detailed route planner level (I later found a way to make it work but too late).
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we decided to walk back by the shortest route on foot according to Google maps. It was only going to be a couple of miles, if that. Before setting off we replenished our water supplies (having set out with two bottles of water and two cans of coke, we were now dry).
It was an interesting and pleasant walk which as much as anything served to illustrate how built up, in a (mostly) picturesque way, the interior of the island is. Apart from a couple of small paddocks we seemed to be walking though one endless long village.
We arrived at Bordeaux Harbour to find there's nothing there. It's bascially a bay that dries at low water full of local boats moored up and not much else. So it was back to the prehistoric with a walk up the coast path and a cut inland to the Dehus dolmen.It's worth a visit to Le Dehus if you're interested in such things as it gives an idea of how a dolmen (prehistoric passage grave remember) might have looked.
I say might have advisedly. The structure has been extensively rebuilt based on interpretations by 19th century antiquarians and early 20th century archeologists and there are known errors and who knows how many untold ones.
I couldn't get a good photo of the whole carving but I did get a fair image of the head. If you're interested http://www.megalithicguernsey.co.uk/le_dehus_dolmen/ contains a good digital image of the whole carving and more details.
You'll be relieved to read that we were prehistoriced out at this point and it was a short walk back to Beuacette. My legs were like jelly by the time we got back on board!
I honestly can't remember what we did on Saturday! Not much I assume.
On Sunday, we departed Beaucette as soon as the tide was high enough over the cill and made our way back to St. Peter Port. We'd decided that the crew change would be much easier there and I also needed to restock some of the galley stores and there's no shop at Beaucette.
It's just a short hop down the coast made complex and interesting by the sheer number of solid lumps of granite that need avoiding!
The crew change went without a hitch and with my homeward crew Rich aboard, the girls off on the toy aeroplane (it has propellers, they expected jet engines!) back to home (and sadly work), and the supplies resupplied we were all set for the final leg of the cruise.
I'll write up more about our impressions of the Channel Islands later but suffice it to say for now that they are magic!
Although by the time I've written and posted this Pagan is half way back home this seems a fitting place to end this installment. My apologies for the length of the post!
Sunday, 15 July 2018
Passage Plan 16 July 2018
Departing Yarmouth IoW approx 05:00UT towards Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne, eta 18:00UT (latest 21:00UT)
Alternates: Newhaven, Brighton
Anticipate light westerly airs in the morning with a sea breeze developing from lunchtime onwards.
Alternates: Newhaven, Brighton
Anticipate light westerly airs in the morning with a sea breeze developing from lunchtime onwards.
Monday, 2 July 2018
2 July 2018 Passage Plan
Departing St Peter Port approx 08:00UT (went approaching rain has passed through) towards Dixcart Bay, Sark
Alternates: Derrible Bay, Havre Gosselin, La Grande Greve (all Sark) or in the unlikely event none of the above available Rosiare Steps (Herm) or back to St Peter Port
Risk of thunderstorms and rain today, wind NE 2 to 4 potentially getting gusty up to 6 later but within anchoring limits. Tomorrow onwards looks near ideal.
Alternates: Derrible Bay, Havre Gosselin, La Grande Greve (all Sark) or in the unlikely event none of the above available Rosiare Steps (Herm) or back to St Peter Port
Risk of thunderstorms and rain today, wind NE 2 to 4 potentially getting gusty up to 6 later but within anchoring limits. Tomorrow onwards looks near ideal.
Sunday, 1 July 2018
2018 Summer Cruise days 15 to 18
Back to the future...
It turned out to be a cunning move to get into St Peter Port on Thursday. It seemed like every boat for a hundred miles around wanted to get in here on Friday!
The weather wasn't bad as such. It was still very sunny and hot. But the breeze was strong enough to make life at anchor somewhat uncomfortable and, like us, a good many crews had decided to head for shelter.
Our bone idleness continued through the weekend although we did manage to invigorate ourselves enough for a proper look around St Peter Port yesterday followed by an excellent Thai meal with live music (to listen to, not eat!)
With thunderstorms forecast for today we decided on a fourth day in port. We had rain this morning but no storm.
Once the rain stopped, we shopped for ships stores, blew up the dinghy and made plans for the coming week.
We'd already decided to scrap the original tentative plan of visiting St Malo in France. With that decision made, we'd further reconsidered the planned crew change in Jersey next Sunday.
Given how busy the weekends have been in St Peter Port, and taking advice that St Helier in Jersey is often packed to capacity in the summer at weekends, we'd have to be there by Thursday to be sure of getting a berth.
And we felt we had a lot of unfinished business in and around Guernsey!
We frustrated ourselves through poor planning and inexperience last week and the whole crew felt very inclined to have another crack at a couple of days in Sark, with a possible side order of Herm before finishing up in Beaucettte for the final weekend.
That meant discussing onward travel arrangements with the incoming crew and rearranging the outgoing flights. This was all accomplished via a Messenger chat and five minutes on the airlines website (and an extra £26)
So although there is a 50% chance of thunderstorms in the morning, we're planning on making our escape shortly after half past seven local time and heading for one of the South coast bays on Sark.
We'll check the weather radar before leaving of course and try and avoid any nastiness (nothing dire is forecast). We may get a bit soggy but we shouldn't get a battering.
If we can't get in or don't like either of the options (Dixcart Bay and Derrible Bay) we'll head back round to Havre Gosselin or La Grande Greve.
If all goes to plan, we'll have a good run ashore on Tuesday with the option to stay on Wednesday. Then we'll either try Herm again or go direct to Beaucettte. If all else fails we'll come back in to St Peter Port
Dinner on board tonight and probably beer on board too. We need to be up and about by no later than 7am and ready to go as soon as there's enough water over the cill and the weather offers a suitable window.
It turned out to be a cunning move to get into St Peter Port on Thursday. It seemed like every boat for a hundred miles around wanted to get in here on Friday!
The weather wasn't bad as such. It was still very sunny and hot. But the breeze was strong enough to make life at anchor somewhat uncomfortable and, like us, a good many crews had decided to head for shelter.
Our bone idleness continued through the weekend although we did manage to invigorate ourselves enough for a proper look around St Peter Port yesterday followed by an excellent Thai meal with live music (to listen to, not eat!)
With thunderstorms forecast for today we decided on a fourth day in port. We had rain this morning but no storm.
Once the rain stopped, we shopped for ships stores, blew up the dinghy and made plans for the coming week.
We'd already decided to scrap the original tentative plan of visiting St Malo in France. With that decision made, we'd further reconsidered the planned crew change in Jersey next Sunday.
Given how busy the weekends have been in St Peter Port, and taking advice that St Helier in Jersey is often packed to capacity in the summer at weekends, we'd have to be there by Thursday to be sure of getting a berth.
And we felt we had a lot of unfinished business in and around Guernsey!
We frustrated ourselves through poor planning and inexperience last week and the whole crew felt very inclined to have another crack at a couple of days in Sark, with a possible side order of Herm before finishing up in Beaucettte for the final weekend.
That meant discussing onward travel arrangements with the incoming crew and rearranging the outgoing flights. This was all accomplished via a Messenger chat and five minutes on the airlines website (and an extra £26)
So although there is a 50% chance of thunderstorms in the morning, we're planning on making our escape shortly after half past seven local time and heading for one of the South coast bays on Sark.
We'll check the weather radar before leaving of course and try and avoid any nastiness (nothing dire is forecast). We may get a bit soggy but we shouldn't get a battering.
If we can't get in or don't like either of the options (Dixcart Bay and Derrible Bay) we'll head back round to Havre Gosselin or La Grande Greve.
If all goes to plan, we'll have a good run ashore on Tuesday with the option to stay on Wednesday. Then we'll either try Herm again or go direct to Beaucettte. If all else fails we'll come back in to St Peter Port
Dinner on board tonight and probably beer on board too. We need to be up and about by no later than 7am and ready to go as soon as there's enough water over the cill and the weather offers a suitable window.
Saturday, 30 June 2018
2018 Summer Cruise day 14
Fixing boats in paradise (part 2)
The pump on the heads (marine toilet to landlubbers) has been playing up for some time. We've put up with it being stiff and with the valve occasionally not sealing allowing "water" to flow back into the bowl but it's been getting worse lately do I decided to dismantle it again and have another go at fixing it.
In the process of taking the top plate off and removing the plunger, I spotted the main cause of the problem. Some heavy handed gorilla (and it wasn't me) has at some point twisted the pump handle anti-clockwise instead of clockwise from the locked position and buggered up the plastic moulding.
The only way to solve the problem was obvious, the entire pump assembly would have to be replaced. So off I trotted to the local boat bits emporium where I was pleased to find they had one in stock and doubly pleased to find that it was about £15 cheaper than in the UK (mainly due to there being no VAT).
With the new pump installed, and you really don't want details or photos, all was well again. Right up until the point where I tried to switch back to fresh water flush (we'd switched to seawater flush whilst at anchor). The changeover valve has always been very stiff to operate ever since I fitted it and now it gave up the ghost and broke.
After a good swear, I pulled the relevant pipework apart and temporarily permanently plumbed the flush to the seawater intake. Even in the marina, the water is so clean that I'm happy to pump it through the loo but the valve will need changing as soon as we get home and go back on the mud berth.
A good clean up of both heads compartment and engineer ensued and that was my day over!
Dinner and a beer on board was the order of business along with a lengthy discussion about plans for the coming week. Nothing definitely decided yet so more of that anon.
The pump on the heads (marine toilet to landlubbers) has been playing up for some time. We've put up with it being stiff and with the valve occasionally not sealing allowing "water" to flow back into the bowl but it's been getting worse lately do I decided to dismantle it again and have another go at fixing it.
In the process of taking the top plate off and removing the plunger, I spotted the main cause of the problem. Some heavy handed gorilla (and it wasn't me) has at some point twisted the pump handle anti-clockwise instead of clockwise from the locked position and buggered up the plastic moulding.
The only way to solve the problem was obvious, the entire pump assembly would have to be replaced. So off I trotted to the local boat bits emporium where I was pleased to find they had one in stock and doubly pleased to find that it was about £15 cheaper than in the UK (mainly due to there being no VAT).
With the new pump installed, and you really don't want details or photos, all was well again. Right up until the point where I tried to switch back to fresh water flush (we'd switched to seawater flush whilst at anchor). The changeover valve has always been very stiff to operate ever since I fitted it and now it gave up the ghost and broke.
After a good swear, I pulled the relevant pipework apart and temporarily permanently plumbed the flush to the seawater intake. Even in the marina, the water is so clean that I'm happy to pump it through the loo but the valve will need changing as soon as we get home and go back on the mud berth.
A good clean up of both heads compartment and engineer ensued and that was my day over!
Dinner and a beer on board was the order of business along with a lengthy discussion about plans for the coming week. Nothing definitely decided yet so more of that anon.
Friday, 29 June 2018
Thoughts on living on the hook...
An aside while things are still fresh in the memory...
Something Jane and I are keen to do is to ween ourselves off a dependency on marinas. So three days on the hook and using the dinghy to get ashore for supplies was good practice.
There's no problem with life aboard Pagan at anchor. Even with slightly less than ideal conditions (It was fairly breezy) nobody felt at all unhappy bobbing about in the bay at La Grande Greve.
However, we did have a number of issues...
We currently have no means of knowing exactly how much water is in the tank. After a few days that starts to loom large in the skippery brain. A simple sight tube would be easy to add to the system, a proper sender and gauge would be better still. One or the other is needed asap.
Our only means of charging the batteries off grid is the engine. Had we remained on the hook for even one more day I'd have had to run the engine for a few hours which isn't good for the engine or the wallet. We need at least one or preferably several solar panels.
The Avon Rover 3.1 dinghy i acquired for a song from a friend of dad's is simply too big for the boat. There's no way it can be inflated on board and it's too heavy to be carried up a beach. The roundtail dinghy that my friend David loaned us last summer when our old dinghy was damaged is an ideal size but lacks the buoyancy at the stern to carry a modern 4 stroke outboard.
So the 3.1 needs to be sold on and a suitable transom stern dinghy acquired.
Carrying the dinghy up the beach was an effort for three of us. It would have been a real chore for two. Transom wheels are a must.
I had a planning fail of fairly epic proportions with the whole excursion ashore. We should have been ashore at least two hours earlier, we should have checked the state of the tide when we got ashore and we should have made the effort to carry the dinghy all the way up the beach.
As a result, our time ashore was rushed when, with better planning, we could have had most of the day to explore Sark. It's a lesson learnt and in my defence this was our first time going ashore from an anchorage. We'll do it better next time!
Anchoring is a pain in the bottom at the moment. It's sufficiently troublesome to be off putting.
The first problem is that the venerable CQR is not self launching. It has to be man, or woman, handled off the bow roller. It's heavy and neither of the ladies is comfortable standing on the foredeck when the boat is bobbing around. Nor is either of them at all keen on doing the cockpit end of the job unfortunately.
So a self launching anchor is on the shopping list.
The next problem is a combination of the probably past it's use by date chain and the manual anchor windlass.
The chain is getting rusty, especially towards the little used last ten or fifteen meters that normally lurks undisturbed in the chain locker. It doesn't run out or recover cleanly on the windlass gypsy. It tends to jam or kink or otherwise seek to frustrate the efforts of the foredeck crew.
If we can afford to do nothing else, we simply must replace the chain asap. And we need more than 50m while we're at it. We had 45m out to get a 3:1 scope at HW in La Grande Greve which was adequate for the conditions and holding (reckoned to be very good at that end of the bay). Had the wind got up or, worse, changed direction we'd have needed a good deal more. So 80m I think plus a goodly length of warp too.
Even with good chain, recovering 40 or 50 metres of chain with the manual windlass is going to be bloody hard work. It's also slow work. It's a disincentive to anchoring out and worse it's a disincentive to lifting the hook and shifting if we haven't got the pick down in the right spot first time. We did shift the anchor in La Grande Greve after we'd been sat there a while (because we'd dropped back too close to another boat) but there was no enthusiasm for the job!
So an electric anchor windlass is also moved up the desirables shopping list. And coupled with a self launching and stowing (another issue with the CQR) anchor, a remote control and a chain counter, anchoring will be as easy as sailing into a bay, picking your spot and pressing a button. Like what we all enviously watched other people doing over the last few days. Gits!
Something Jane and I are keen to do is to ween ourselves off a dependency on marinas. So three days on the hook and using the dinghy to get ashore for supplies was good practice.
There's no problem with life aboard Pagan at anchor. Even with slightly less than ideal conditions (It was fairly breezy) nobody felt at all unhappy bobbing about in the bay at La Grande Greve.
However, we did have a number of issues...
We currently have no means of knowing exactly how much water is in the tank. After a few days that starts to loom large in the skippery brain. A simple sight tube would be easy to add to the system, a proper sender and gauge would be better still. One or the other is needed asap.
Our only means of charging the batteries off grid is the engine. Had we remained on the hook for even one more day I'd have had to run the engine for a few hours which isn't good for the engine or the wallet. We need at least one or preferably several solar panels.
The Avon Rover 3.1 dinghy i acquired for a song from a friend of dad's is simply too big for the boat. There's no way it can be inflated on board and it's too heavy to be carried up a beach. The roundtail dinghy that my friend David loaned us last summer when our old dinghy was damaged is an ideal size but lacks the buoyancy at the stern to carry a modern 4 stroke outboard.
So the 3.1 needs to be sold on and a suitable transom stern dinghy acquired.
Carrying the dinghy up the beach was an effort for three of us. It would have been a real chore for two. Transom wheels are a must.
I had a planning fail of fairly epic proportions with the whole excursion ashore. We should have been ashore at least two hours earlier, we should have checked the state of the tide when we got ashore and we should have made the effort to carry the dinghy all the way up the beach.
As a result, our time ashore was rushed when, with better planning, we could have had most of the day to explore Sark. It's a lesson learnt and in my defence this was our first time going ashore from an anchorage. We'll do it better next time!
Anchoring is a pain in the bottom at the moment. It's sufficiently troublesome to be off putting.
The first problem is that the venerable CQR is not self launching. It has to be man, or woman, handled off the bow roller. It's heavy and neither of the ladies is comfortable standing on the foredeck when the boat is bobbing around. Nor is either of them at all keen on doing the cockpit end of the job unfortunately.
So a self launching anchor is on the shopping list.
The next problem is a combination of the probably past it's use by date chain and the manual anchor windlass.
The chain is getting rusty, especially towards the little used last ten or fifteen meters that normally lurks undisturbed in the chain locker. It doesn't run out or recover cleanly on the windlass gypsy. It tends to jam or kink or otherwise seek to frustrate the efforts of the foredeck crew.
If we can afford to do nothing else, we simply must replace the chain asap. And we need more than 50m while we're at it. We had 45m out to get a 3:1 scope at HW in La Grande Greve which was adequate for the conditions and holding (reckoned to be very good at that end of the bay). Had the wind got up or, worse, changed direction we'd have needed a good deal more. So 80m I think plus a goodly length of warp too.
Even with good chain, recovering 40 or 50 metres of chain with the manual windlass is going to be bloody hard work. It's also slow work. It's a disincentive to anchoring out and worse it's a disincentive to lifting the hook and shifting if we haven't got the pick down in the right spot first time. We did shift the anchor in La Grande Greve after we'd been sat there a while (because we'd dropped back too close to another boat) but there was no enthusiasm for the job!
So an electric anchor windlass is also moved up the desirables shopping list. And coupled with a self launching and stowing (another issue with the CQR) anchor, a remote control and a chain counter, anchoring will be as easy as sailing into a bay, picking your spot and pressing a button. Like what we all enviously watched other people doing over the last few days. Gits!
2018 Summer Cruise days 10 to 13 - anchor adventure
With the fine weather set to continue, we decided on Monday to make the short hop from St Peter Port to the anchorage off Rosiere Steps in Herm.
It's such a short hop that there seemed little point in putting the sails up only to put them away again twenty minutes later so we bimbled over under motor.
It's an excellent anchorage in a Nor'easterly and unfortunately a lot of other people had read the same page of the pilot book so it was fairly chocker.
We anchored securely in the outer anchorage which was reasonable but affected by the wash of the Guernsey to Herm ferry, every motor boat using the Percee Pass (a narrow channel between Herm and Jethou) and a regular procession of RIBs in and out of the landing.
By the following morning we'd had enough of the wash and decided to skedaddle over to Sark. It would have been nice to get ashore at Herm but maybe we can have another crack later in the holiday.
Once again, it wasn't worth faffing about with the sails so we motored it. The girls are having a lovely time in the sunshine but they ain't too keen on working the deck when the boat is bouncing around and it was a fairly brisk day breeze wise. So I'm being Mr. Easygoing Skipper and not Captain Bligh!
We were trying for one of the half a dozen or so visitor mooring buoys in Havre Gosselin. There was just one free as we approached and then, much to our disgust, a yacht nipped through the Gouliet Passage between Sark and Brecqhuo and grabbed it from under our noses!
Oh well, plan B! We nipped around the shoals and rocks into the next bay and anchored in splendid isolation at the opposite end to everybody else.
It is a fabulous anchorage (provided the wind is in the North or East, I'd imagine it would become untenable in any sort of Sou'westerly). Looking one way you're virtually under the cliffs, look the other and it's open sea as far as the eye can see. Even with that North Easterly rising F5 gusting F6, there was very little wave action and not much swell.
On Wednesday we decided it was time to adventure ashore. We'd inflated the side tubes of our borrowed roundtail dinghy and put the floors in before leaving St Peter Port and carried it on deck between the main mast and the baby stay so all that we had to do was inflate the bow chamber and launch it.
I decided to use the bigger outboard, borrowed from Tony for the duration of the cruise, as our handy little 2 stroke is playing up a bit. The drawback of that plan is that the 3.5hp four stroke is really a bit heavy but it was usable and reliable.
We got ashore rather later than would have been ideal, failed to make a note of the time and the state of the tide, and ran out of enthusiasm for carrying the dinghy up the beach about half way between the water and the cliffs! Securing the painter to a convenient rock, we eyed up the daunting climb ahead of us...
We didn't count the rough steps that kindly volunteers have hewn out of the cliff face but it's about 80m up to La Coupee. Knackering and ever so slightly scary!
It's worth it when you get there though, the view is spectacular...
We set off down the track used by the horse drawn carts and tractors, there are no cars on Sark, to find the very useful shop. We only needed bread, eggs and milk but the ice creams were too tempting to ignore!
By now I was getting twitchy about the tide. Low water had come and gone and with every passing minute the water would be getting closer to the dinghy. So we cut and ran (well, walked briskly anyway) back to La Coupee. When we got there, the dinghy was still high and dry and we probably had two hours at least in hand.
We crossed the narrow road built by German PoWs in 1945 to get a picture of Pagan from on high...
... and then gingerly made our way back down the cliff. We spent a while resting and Maire and I went for a plodge in the sea. Plodging is what we called paddling in Sunderland when I were a lad. The cool water was bliss on overheated feet.
We relaunched the dinghy without any difficulty and set off back towards Pagan. A wee bit of a chop had got up and Jane, who insists on sitting in rather than on a dinghy, copped a few splashes but otherwise it was uneventful.
Back on board we enjoyed a fry up for tea.
Then I checked the weather for the next few days and pondered upon plans over the coming weekend. The forecast suggested the Nor'easterly would continue until Sunday or Monday rising from F4 gusting 5 or occasionally 6 to F5/6 gusting 7 to 8.
That didn't sound very conducive to a comfortable life at anchor! So a marina it would have to be, and sooner rather than later to beat the rush of like minded sailors. There's only two to choose from and our preferred option of Beaucettte is not recommended in strong Nor'easterlies.
I rang the harbour master at Beaucettte for advise and the advise was, as I rather anticipated, not to try it until at least Sunday as the entrance was too rough.
So it was on with the motor, up with the anchor and back to St Peter Port. This time I toyed privately with the notion of getting some sail up mainly to steady the boat as we were heading across the wind and waves. In the end, I didn't bother once again.
We were soon alongside the waiting pontoon in the outer harbour. Then when the tide was high enough early in the evening we were led in to a berth in Victoria Marina where we'll remain now until Sunday or possibly Monday.
Plans for next week are fluid at the moment. The wind should go round more into the West and ease up a bit which makes Alderney a possibility but we have to be in St Helier, in Jersey, by next Saturday night so a forty mile round trip in the wrong direction might not appeal. We shall see what the weather does over the next few days and go from there
It's such a short hop that there seemed little point in putting the sails up only to put them away again twenty minutes later so we bimbled over under motor.
It's an excellent anchorage in a Nor'easterly and unfortunately a lot of other people had read the same page of the pilot book so it was fairly chocker.
We anchored securely in the outer anchorage which was reasonable but affected by the wash of the Guernsey to Herm ferry, every motor boat using the Percee Pass (a narrow channel between Herm and Jethou) and a regular procession of RIBs in and out of the landing.
By the following morning we'd had enough of the wash and decided to skedaddle over to Sark. It would have been nice to get ashore at Herm but maybe we can have another crack later in the holiday.
Once again, it wasn't worth faffing about with the sails so we motored it. The girls are having a lovely time in the sunshine but they ain't too keen on working the deck when the boat is bouncing around and it was a fairly brisk day breeze wise. So I'm being Mr. Easygoing Skipper and not Captain Bligh!
We were trying for one of the half a dozen or so visitor mooring buoys in Havre Gosselin. There was just one free as we approached and then, much to our disgust, a yacht nipped through the Gouliet Passage between Sark and Brecqhuo and grabbed it from under our noses!
Oh well, plan B! We nipped around the shoals and rocks into the next bay and anchored in splendid isolation at the opposite end to everybody else.
It is a fabulous anchorage (provided the wind is in the North or East, I'd imagine it would become untenable in any sort of Sou'westerly). Looking one way you're virtually under the cliffs, look the other and it's open sea as far as the eye can see. Even with that North Easterly rising F5 gusting F6, there was very little wave action and not much swell.
On Wednesday we decided it was time to adventure ashore. We'd inflated the side tubes of our borrowed roundtail dinghy and put the floors in before leaving St Peter Port and carried it on deck between the main mast and the baby stay so all that we had to do was inflate the bow chamber and launch it.
I decided to use the bigger outboard, borrowed from Tony for the duration of the cruise, as our handy little 2 stroke is playing up a bit. The drawback of that plan is that the 3.5hp four stroke is really a bit heavy but it was usable and reliable.
We got ashore rather later than would have been ideal, failed to make a note of the time and the state of the tide, and ran out of enthusiasm for carrying the dinghy up the beach about half way between the water and the cliffs! Securing the painter to a convenient rock, we eyed up the daunting climb ahead of us...
We didn't count the rough steps that kindly volunteers have hewn out of the cliff face but it's about 80m up to La Coupee. Knackering and ever so slightly scary!
It's worth it when you get there though, the view is spectacular...
We set off down the track used by the horse drawn carts and tractors, there are no cars on Sark, to find the very useful shop. We only needed bread, eggs and milk but the ice creams were too tempting to ignore!
By now I was getting twitchy about the tide. Low water had come and gone and with every passing minute the water would be getting closer to the dinghy. So we cut and ran (well, walked briskly anyway) back to La Coupee. When we got there, the dinghy was still high and dry and we probably had two hours at least in hand.
We crossed the narrow road built by German PoWs in 1945 to get a picture of Pagan from on high...
... and then gingerly made our way back down the cliff. We spent a while resting and Maire and I went for a plodge in the sea. Plodging is what we called paddling in Sunderland when I were a lad. The cool water was bliss on overheated feet.
We relaunched the dinghy without any difficulty and set off back towards Pagan. A wee bit of a chop had got up and Jane, who insists on sitting in rather than on a dinghy, copped a few splashes but otherwise it was uneventful.
Back on board we enjoyed a fry up for tea.
Then I checked the weather for the next few days and pondered upon plans over the coming weekend. The forecast suggested the Nor'easterly would continue until Sunday or Monday rising from F4 gusting 5 or occasionally 6 to F5/6 gusting 7 to 8.
That didn't sound very conducive to a comfortable life at anchor! So a marina it would have to be, and sooner rather than later to beat the rush of like minded sailors. There's only two to choose from and our preferred option of Beaucettte is not recommended in strong Nor'easterlies.
I rang the harbour master at Beaucettte for advise and the advise was, as I rather anticipated, not to try it until at least Sunday as the entrance was too rough.
So it was on with the motor, up with the anchor and back to St Peter Port. This time I toyed privately with the notion of getting some sail up mainly to steady the boat as we were heading across the wind and waves. In the end, I didn't bother once again.
We were soon alongside the waiting pontoon in the outer harbour. Then when the tide was high enough early in the evening we were led in to a berth in Victoria Marina where we'll remain now until Sunday or possibly Monday.
Plans for next week are fluid at the moment. The wind should go round more into the West and ease up a bit which makes Alderney a possibility but we have to be in St Helier, in Jersey, by next Saturday night so a forty mile round trip in the wrong direction might not appeal. We shall see what the weather does over the next few days and go from there
Monday, 25 June 2018
2018 Summer Cruise days 8 & 9 (St Peter Port)
Saturday was crew change day. Rik's wife Michelle arrived on the ferry at lunchtime and his friend Peter, a Guernseyman, picked us all up and took us for lunch before dropping Tony and myself at the airport.
Tony had a flight to catch home and I had my next crew to meet. Jane and my cousin Maire arrived on time and we took a taxi back to St Peter Port (more expensive than the bus but easier)
Once the girls had settled themselves on board, we went out for a meal at The Crows Nest. Good and not excessively pricey.
After a long day traveling, both the girls were ready for an early night. I went for a late evening walk as I was still a bit stiff after the exertions of the long passage through the night.
Yesterday, we had a leisurely start time the day finally getting ourselves moving late morning. We visited Castle Corner which passed the afternoon most agreeably.
On our return to the boat, Jane and Maire went in search of fresh food and returned with some very good burgers and salad.
The weather was very hot and sunny and it seems set to stay that way for a while. We've already moved on to the next phase of our cruise of which more anon
PS. Sorry about the lack of photos. For some reason I didn't get around to taking any!
Tony had a flight to catch home and I had my next crew to meet. Jane and my cousin Maire arrived on time and we took a taxi back to St Peter Port (more expensive than the bus but easier)
Once the girls had settled themselves on board, we went out for a meal at The Crows Nest. Good and not excessively pricey.
After a long day traveling, both the girls were ready for an early night. I went for a late evening walk as I was still a bit stiff after the exertions of the long passage through the night.
Yesterday, we had a leisurely start time the day finally getting ourselves moving late morning. We visited Castle Corner which passed the afternoon most agreeably.
On our return to the boat, Jane and Maire went in search of fresh food and returned with some very good burgers and salad.
The weather was very hot and sunny and it seems set to stay that way for a while. We've already moved on to the next phase of our cruise of which more anon
PS. Sorry about the lack of photos. For some reason I didn't get around to taking any!
Saturday, 23 June 2018
2018 Summer Cruise days 6 through 7
Our decision not to move on on Wednesday was fully vindicated as several yachts arrived during the day reporting on conditions as bad, if not worse, than the previous evening.
Happily, today (Thursday) promised at least a fighting chance of making an overnight passage direct from Eastbourne to Guernsey.
There was no pressing need to make an early start, in fact it made sense to leave at around 9:00am as it optimised the tides overall if we averaged 5 knots and would put us into the approaches to St. Peter Port in Guernsey in daylight on any average speed between 4 knots and 6 knots.
We set out expecting the wind to have backed into the North West or even North but it was stubbornly staying in the West. Even so, we managed to get hard on the wind and sail from shortly after leaving Sovereign Harbour, past Beachy Head and down as far as the end of the Dover Straits Traffic Seperation Scheme.
Frustratingly, just as we approached the almost continuous stream of ships heading West, the wind headed us (or perhaps we sailed into a more South Westerly stream of air) and we had to start the engine again.
Having expected to be on a reach all the way to just past Alderney, once again we were motoring into the teeth of the wind. Beating to windward was not a viable option realistically. We had neither the time, nor to be honest, the inclination and tacking backwards and forwards across the path of dozens of ships steaming at anything from 9 knots to 18 knots would have been, frankly, stupid.
We did debate tacking North towards the Isle of Wight and then back on long boards but I did a quick calculation of how much time it would cost us and didn't fancy the result one little bit!
So we sidled across the West bound traffic without too much difficulty. Whilat doing fuel checks as we motored along what felt like the central reservation of a motorway with ships going past us travelling West to our North and ships going East to our South, we suddenly realised that the forecast backing of the wind had finally arrived and we had enough angle on it to get sailing.
So it was off with the engine again and back under full sail just before 21:00UT (10:00pm British Summer Time).. We set a decent pace along the next leg into the darkening night. The moon was up and bright, it wasn't too chilly (although we all felt the need for extra layers) and with us nicely set up I left Tony and Rik to it and went below for an hour or two's nap to recharge my batteries.
I doxed fitfully, getting some benefit, but every time I was on the verge of dropping off, the bloody French issued another DSC "All Ships" alert which set the alarm off on the VHF radio. It's not an alarm that can be ignored as it could be a Pan Pan or a Mayday that we ought to respond to. Why the French issue an "All Ships" alert for routine safety information broadcasts I do not know but I wish they'd stop it! I won't run without the VHF on and the alarms enabled for safety reasons. Hey ho.
I felt slightly refreshed when I came back on deck and rather pleased to see that Tony and Rik had Pagan sailing very nicely indeed at over 7 knots. Rik went below to grab some rest whilst Tony and I tried to figure out how to get across the continuous stream of Eastbound shipping between us and the French coast.
Pagan's AIS receiver will reliably pick up ships out to 30 to 40 miles and usually picks up the bigger ships, and slightly intermittently the smaller ones too, out to beyond 50 miles. With the display set to the 48 mile range, we were staring at a virtually continuous stream of ships with no obvious gaps we could dive through.
After an hour and a half of "not a chance", we spotted a gap. It wasn't much of a gap and it would mean passing the stern of one vessel and turning due South with a big container ship heading straight for us at over 18 knots. Our CPA (closest point of approach) would be barely 2 miles which is not a comfortable safety margin but we were being held well North of where we needed to be and getting, if not desperate, certainly keen to get back on track.
Discretion being the better part of valour, we fired up the engine and put the pedal to the metal. At one point, we were doing over 8 knots over the ground! Once we were clear of the shipping, we were able to lay the course for the Casquets and turn the engine off again.
We watched the sun rise, always a fantastic sight at sea, and then Rik came back on watch and Tony went below. With a fair old swell coming in on our beam, steering was a constant challenge (the wheelpilot isn't really man enough to handle those conditions under sail and in any case we didn't want to be running the batteries down all night) but we got to grips with it with practice.
Tony only managed an hour or so, but at least he did actually get to sleep. I then took another two hour break and this time did manage to get some actual sleep. I was pleased about that as I really didn't want to be struggling to keep my eyes open once we got in amongst the rock strewn and tidally challenging waters of the Channel Islands.
I'd decided long before we set off not to attempt to take a short cut down the Swinge (the passage between Alderney and Burhou. The tides can run very strongly through there and in race conditions the passage can be very dangerous. As there was no way of knowing in advance what time we'd enter the channel, nor of predicting the sea state, I considered it wise to go a few extra miles and go around the outside of the Casquets.
It turned out we should have gone a bit further outside of the Casquets than we did as there were some rather interesting sea conditions. There were no overfalls or other warnings on the Navionics chart, nothing, in fact, to make me think that clearing the rocks by half a mile would be problematic.
However, had I looked (as I usually do but unaccountably failed to do on this occasion) at the Admiralty chart, I would have seen that my route passed over a shallow 14.6 meter round topped rock with "Violent Eddies" marked on the chart all around. Happily, they weren't too violent but they were rather interesting to helm through! No harm done but a lesson learnt (or I should say re-learnt and reinforced)
The Navionics chart with our course plotted
The Admiralty chart wth our actual track plotted
The difference is obvious!
Anyway, after that bit of excitement, we now found ourselves running dead before the wind with a quartering sea. That is a recipe for slow and frustrating sailing and with the tide due to turn foul in the channel down to St. Peter Port in less than 3 hours none of us fancied slogging all afternoon to get into port. So it was back on with the noise machine for the final leg.
I confess I struggled to relate what I could see on the charts, both Navionics and Admiraly, in the approaches to St. Peter Port. With all the rocks covered, the vista in front of me bore no obvious relation to the picture my mind formed from the charts. This was a little disconcerting as normally my mental image from a map or chart is a very good fit with what I can see in the real world.
I got my eyes and brain back in sync farily quickly once a couple of obvious landmarks had been identified and added to the mental data and we made our way into the harbour with the 'Q' flag flying.
We milled about for a bit then spotted the waiting pontoon and went alongside. Seconds later, the harbour dory whizzed up and guided us in to a berth in Victoria Marina. All that remained to be done was to fill out the customs clearance form, which required listing all the wine, spirits and tobacco on board (no mean task on Pagan!), and posting it in the box at the head of the access ramp.
Then the 'Q' flag could come down and, after a swift visit to the local chandlery to purchase one (I hadn't been able to get one before we left as our local chandlery doesn't stock them and I forgot to order one online), the Guernsey courtesy flag hoisted in it's place.
Then it was off to the nearest pub for the traditional end of passage pint. A second followed the first to keep it company by which time we all felt that more beer would be a bad mistake! Back to the boat we staggered, all of about 100 yards, for coffee and a rest before we went ashore again for a Thai curry. It may be hard to believe but we all had a coke to drink with our food and then returned to the boat without partaking of any more booze. Rik baled first but Tony and I weren't far behind and the entire crew was away with the fairies by not much after nine!
We'd covered 147 nautical miles in 28 hours and 25 minutes at an average speed of just under 5.2 knots arriving within half an hour of our ETA! 78.5 miles, slightly more than half of the passage, was done under sail which, in the conditions and considering the time contraints, wasn't too shabby.
Happily, today (Thursday) promised at least a fighting chance of making an overnight passage direct from Eastbourne to Guernsey.
There was no pressing need to make an early start, in fact it made sense to leave at around 9:00am as it optimised the tides overall if we averaged 5 knots and would put us into the approaches to St. Peter Port in Guernsey in daylight on any average speed between 4 knots and 6 knots.
We set out expecting the wind to have backed into the North West or even North but it was stubbornly staying in the West. Even so, we managed to get hard on the wind and sail from shortly after leaving Sovereign Harbour, past Beachy Head and down as far as the end of the Dover Straits Traffic Seperation Scheme.
Frustratingly, just as we approached the almost continuous stream of ships heading West, the wind headed us (or perhaps we sailed into a more South Westerly stream of air) and we had to start the engine again.
Having expected to be on a reach all the way to just past Alderney, once again we were motoring into the teeth of the wind. Beating to windward was not a viable option realistically. We had neither the time, nor to be honest, the inclination and tacking backwards and forwards across the path of dozens of ships steaming at anything from 9 knots to 18 knots would have been, frankly, stupid.
We did debate tacking North towards the Isle of Wight and then back on long boards but I did a quick calculation of how much time it would cost us and didn't fancy the result one little bit!
So we sidled across the West bound traffic without too much difficulty. Whilat doing fuel checks as we motored along what felt like the central reservation of a motorway with ships going past us travelling West to our North and ships going East to our South, we suddenly realised that the forecast backing of the wind had finally arrived and we had enough angle on it to get sailing.
So it was off with the engine again and back under full sail just before 21:00UT (10:00pm British Summer Time).. We set a decent pace along the next leg into the darkening night. The moon was up and bright, it wasn't too chilly (although we all felt the need for extra layers) and with us nicely set up I left Tony and Rik to it and went below for an hour or two's nap to recharge my batteries.
I doxed fitfully, getting some benefit, but every time I was on the verge of dropping off, the bloody French issued another DSC "All Ships" alert which set the alarm off on the VHF radio. It's not an alarm that can be ignored as it could be a Pan Pan or a Mayday that we ought to respond to. Why the French issue an "All Ships" alert for routine safety information broadcasts I do not know but I wish they'd stop it! I won't run without the VHF on and the alarms enabled for safety reasons. Hey ho.
I felt slightly refreshed when I came back on deck and rather pleased to see that Tony and Rik had Pagan sailing very nicely indeed at over 7 knots. Rik went below to grab some rest whilst Tony and I tried to figure out how to get across the continuous stream of Eastbound shipping between us and the French coast.
Pagan's AIS receiver will reliably pick up ships out to 30 to 40 miles and usually picks up the bigger ships, and slightly intermittently the smaller ones too, out to beyond 50 miles. With the display set to the 48 mile range, we were staring at a virtually continuous stream of ships with no obvious gaps we could dive through.
After an hour and a half of "not a chance", we spotted a gap. It wasn't much of a gap and it would mean passing the stern of one vessel and turning due South with a big container ship heading straight for us at over 18 knots. Our CPA (closest point of approach) would be barely 2 miles which is not a comfortable safety margin but we were being held well North of where we needed to be and getting, if not desperate, certainly keen to get back on track.
Discretion being the better part of valour, we fired up the engine and put the pedal to the metal. At one point, we were doing over 8 knots over the ground! Once we were clear of the shipping, we were able to lay the course for the Casquets and turn the engine off again.
We watched the sun rise, always a fantastic sight at sea, and then Rik came back on watch and Tony went below. With a fair old swell coming in on our beam, steering was a constant challenge (the wheelpilot isn't really man enough to handle those conditions under sail and in any case we didn't want to be running the batteries down all night) but we got to grips with it with practice.
Tony only managed an hour or so, but at least he did actually get to sleep. I then took another two hour break and this time did manage to get some actual sleep. I was pleased about that as I really didn't want to be struggling to keep my eyes open once we got in amongst the rock strewn and tidally challenging waters of the Channel Islands.
 |
| Approach the Casquets in a rolly polly beam on swell |
It turned out we should have gone a bit further outside of the Casquets than we did as there were some rather interesting sea conditions. There were no overfalls or other warnings on the Navionics chart, nothing, in fact, to make me think that clearing the rocks by half a mile would be problematic.
However, had I looked (as I usually do but unaccountably failed to do on this occasion) at the Admiralty chart, I would have seen that my route passed over a shallow 14.6 meter round topped rock with "Violent Eddies" marked on the chart all around. Happily, they weren't too violent but they were rather interesting to helm through! No harm done but a lesson learnt (or I should say re-learnt and reinforced)
The difference is obvious!
Anyway, after that bit of excitement, we now found ourselves running dead before the wind with a quartering sea. That is a recipe for slow and frustrating sailing and with the tide due to turn foul in the channel down to St. Peter Port in less than 3 hours none of us fancied slogging all afternoon to get into port. So it was back on with the noise machine for the final leg.
I confess I struggled to relate what I could see on the charts, both Navionics and Admiraly, in the approaches to St. Peter Port. With all the rocks covered, the vista in front of me bore no obvious relation to the picture my mind formed from the charts. This was a little disconcerting as normally my mental image from a map or chart is a very good fit with what I can see in the real world.
I got my eyes and brain back in sync farily quickly once a couple of obvious landmarks had been identified and added to the mental data and we made our way into the harbour with the 'Q' flag flying.
We milled about for a bit then spotted the waiting pontoon and went alongside. Seconds later, the harbour dory whizzed up and guided us in to a berth in Victoria Marina. All that remained to be done was to fill out the customs clearance form, which required listing all the wine, spirits and tobacco on board (no mean task on Pagan!), and posting it in the box at the head of the access ramp.
Then the 'Q' flag could come down and, after a swift visit to the local chandlery to purchase one (I hadn't been able to get one before we left as our local chandlery doesn't stock them and I forgot to order one online), the Guernsey courtesy flag hoisted in it's place.
 |
| Alongside in St. Peter Port |
We'd covered 147 nautical miles in 28 hours and 25 minutes at an average speed of just under 5.2 knots arriving within half an hour of our ETA! 78.5 miles, slightly more than half of the passage, was done under sail which, in the conditions and considering the time contraints, wasn't too shabby.
Thursday, 21 June 2018
Thursday 21 June 2018 - Passage Plan
Departing Sovereign Harbour (Eastbourne) 08:00UT towards St. Peter Port, Guernsey eta 12:00UT 22 Jun (tomorrow, Friday). (Latest 21:00UT 22 Jun)
Alternates :- Cherbourg, Braye Hbr (Alderney), Beaucette Marina (Guernsey) or reverse course to nearest convenient UK South Coast port
Weather: Northerly winds, variable strength, expecting F4 or 5 with gusts to 6 to begin with and a sea state of up to 1m. Forecasts indicate wind will moderate and the sea state reduce as throughout the day and into the night.
Alternates :- Cherbourg, Braye Hbr (Alderney), Beaucette Marina (Guernsey) or reverse course to nearest convenient UK South Coast port
Weather: Northerly winds, variable strength, expecting F4 or 5 with gusts to 6 to begin with and a sea state of up to 1m. Forecasts indicate wind will moderate and the sea state reduce as throughout the day and into the night.
Wednesday, 20 June 2018
2018 Summer Cruise days 4 & 5
Tony and I awoke to our alarms first thing Tuesday morning and promptly decided we had not had enough sleep and recovery time to get underway. We knew that it was going to be a tough day bashing straight into the wind and sea and we were not in a fit state to tackle it.
(We didn't prepare ourselves very well the day before, too much time waffling about, too long in the bar - albeit we didn't over-do the beer, and too late to bed)
So we decided to get a few more hours rest and look at departing when the tidal gate opened around 1:00pm that afternoon.
We felt much brighter when we awoke for the second time and the forecast offered the prospect of a possible improvement in conditions. So we decided to depart Dover and aim to go straight through if possible but divert into Eastbourne or Cherbourg if it wasn't on.
We were underway at 12:42UT (1:42pm local time) and at 23:51UT (ten to one the following morning) we were alongside in Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne.
The conditions did not improve at all. If anything, they got worse. The problem wasn't the wind, which never rose above a stiff breeze, it was the sea conditions. Pagan made better progress this year than she did in precisely the same circumstances last year but it was really hard work on the crew. Even sitting still was physically demanding as the boat was being thrown around in a random fashion with no pattern to it.
By the time we reached Dungeness, in the fog, we had had enough and we laid the course for Sovereign Harbour with the plan to have at least a 6 or 8 hour layover before moving on.
The late evening weather forecast suggested conditions would be no better today (Wednesday) and once we were alongside and I fired up the laptop to look at the various weather sources I like to compare, it was clear that there would be no improvement until tomorrow (Thursday).
So the decision was promptly made to have (another!) rest day in port and make plans for Thursday onwards. The wind goes Northerly in the morning but kicks up for a spell before conditions are forecast to improve. So provisionally we're looking at a mid-afternoon exit from Sovereign Harbour and aim to go through the night arriving in St. Peter Port sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, we had a problem last night with the built in rechargable batteries on the solar powered Tacktick instrument heads going flat in a matter of hours. I can live without the wind but if the master head powered down we lose the depth sounder (crap design but there you go). So today we've rigged up a means of recharging, and if necessary powering, one of the heads off the boat 12v supply.
And we've tidied the boat, sorted out our gear and made things all shipshape again!
Here's our track, 100% motoring at (mostly) 2,400rpm ...
We covered 47.2 miles in 11 hours 53 minutes at an average speed of just under 4 knots which indicates how crap the conditions were since at those revs in flat water Pagan would be doing close to 7 knots. On the up side, we used about 30 litres of diesel (about 2.5l an hour) which is a significant improvement over the amount we burnt last year on the same leg. I'm getting an understanding of the most efficient revs on the engine in Pagan and there seems to be (unsurprisingly) a drastic increase in fuel consumption for relatively little benefit in speed over the ground once you push the revs much above 2,500 (from memory, I think we were running at about 2,700 to 2,900 last year)
Now the debate appears to be where to eat and drink tonight!
(We didn't prepare ourselves very well the day before, too much time waffling about, too long in the bar - albeit we didn't over-do the beer, and too late to bed)
So we decided to get a few more hours rest and look at departing when the tidal gate opened around 1:00pm that afternoon.
We felt much brighter when we awoke for the second time and the forecast offered the prospect of a possible improvement in conditions. So we decided to depart Dover and aim to go straight through if possible but divert into Eastbourne or Cherbourg if it wasn't on.
We were underway at 12:42UT (1:42pm local time) and at 23:51UT (ten to one the following morning) we were alongside in Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne.
The conditions did not improve at all. If anything, they got worse. The problem wasn't the wind, which never rose above a stiff breeze, it was the sea conditions. Pagan made better progress this year than she did in precisely the same circumstances last year but it was really hard work on the crew. Even sitting still was physically demanding as the boat was being thrown around in a random fashion with no pattern to it.
By the time we reached Dungeness, in the fog, we had had enough and we laid the course for Sovereign Harbour with the plan to have at least a 6 or 8 hour layover before moving on.
The late evening weather forecast suggested conditions would be no better today (Wednesday) and once we were alongside and I fired up the laptop to look at the various weather sources I like to compare, it was clear that there would be no improvement until tomorrow (Thursday).
So the decision was promptly made to have (another!) rest day in port and make plans for Thursday onwards. The wind goes Northerly in the morning but kicks up for a spell before conditions are forecast to improve. So provisionally we're looking at a mid-afternoon exit from Sovereign Harbour and aim to go through the night arriving in St. Peter Port sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, we had a problem last night with the built in rechargable batteries on the solar powered Tacktick instrument heads going flat in a matter of hours. I can live without the wind but if the master head powered down we lose the depth sounder (crap design but there you go). So today we've rigged up a means of recharging, and if necessary powering, one of the heads off the boat 12v supply.
And we've tidied the boat, sorted out our gear and made things all shipshape again!
Here's our track, 100% motoring at (mostly) 2,400rpm ...
We covered 47.2 miles in 11 hours 53 minutes at an average speed of just under 4 knots which indicates how crap the conditions were since at those revs in flat water Pagan would be doing close to 7 knots. On the up side, we used about 30 litres of diesel (about 2.5l an hour) which is a significant improvement over the amount we burnt last year on the same leg. I'm getting an understanding of the most efficient revs on the engine in Pagan and there seems to be (unsurprisingly) a drastic increase in fuel consumption for relatively little benefit in speed over the ground once you push the revs much above 2,500 (from memory, I think we were running at about 2,700 to 2,900 last year)
Now the debate appears to be where to eat and drink tonight!
Tuesday, 19 June 2018
Tuesday 19 June 2018 - Passage Plan
Departing Dover imminently towards St. Peter Port, Guernsey eta 10:00UT Thursday approx
Alternates :- Sovereign Harbour (Eastbourne), Cherbourg
Weather: WSW F4 gusting 5 occ., sea state slight. Vis reasonable but risk of fog patches (we have radar and AIS). Anticipate weather improving and wind shift to our advantage later in passage
Alternates :- Sovereign Harbour (Eastbourne), Cherbourg
Weather: WSW F4 gusting 5 occ., sea state slight. Vis reasonable but risk of fog patches (we have radar and AIS). Anticipate weather improving and wind shift to our advantage later in passage
Monday, 18 June 2018
2018 Summer Cruise days 1, 2 & 3
Rik and Tony having arrived quite late on Friday evening, Saturday was spent, as planned, getting ready to go.
Kit was sorted out, a final shopping run made and all was ready by late afternoon.
I had planned for the possibility of the weather being too brisk to make anchoring downriver an attractive proposition and that was indeed the case. So we ate and had a few beers on board before retiring for an all too brief sleep.
We needed to make an early start to make the best of the tides so it was up, up and away at the ungodly hour of 4.00am. There was astonishing little wind given the forecast so we motored downriver, putting the sails up on the way. As we approached the entrance to the River Roach, the breeze finaly picked up enough to stop the noise machine.
With the tide helping us along, we wetre making a good 5 knots over the ground and as we cleared the land and got out into the Whitaker Channel the wind picked up and so did our speed.
We covered the 25 miles to the South West Sunk crossing in just over 4 hours. With the engine idling in neutral as a precsaution, we felt our way through the as yet unnamed gat through the sands and, if anything, I'd say it's deeper than it was last year.
We kept the engine idling as we crossed the Black Deep as there was a small feeder container ship coming up the channel on a collision course. As a sailing vessel (with caveats that didn't apply in this case) we were the stand on vessel but he showed no signs of altering course. If anything he was edging further to starboard and reducing our predicted CPA (closest point of approach).
I had a sneaky feeling he was shaping up to pass down Fisherman's Gat to I tried to call him on the VHF with no response. I executed a DSC call which, after a delay, was acknowledged but still no communication. As I'd guessed, he did indeed turn into the gat and we breathed again and stopped the engine, which had never been in gear.
By now, it was getting a bit too exciting for full sail although we were hitting over 7.5 knots at times.
I'd decided based on experience gained that the next time I needed to reef Pagan down, I'd drop the mizzen to see if that improved the balance of the reefed sail plain. With the first reef in the main, a moderate amount of genoa rolled away and the mizzen stowed she was much better behaved.
We had an excellent sail down to the North Foreland and on past Ramsgate. We put in a tack into the outer reached of Pegwell Bay to avoid an oncoming fishing boat and on the next "good" tack the wind started to head us and our speed began to drop off.
With only 10 miles to go to Dover and the conditions becoming tiring on top of a short night's sleep, I made the pragmatic decision to get the engine on and burn a bit of diesel to get into Dover sooner rather than later. It turned out to be a very fortunate decision.
Within an hour of making that call, the wind got up and, significantly, so did the sea state. Our speed over the ground bombed from around 5 knots to, at times, less than a knot and even with the revs piled on we were struggling to maintain 2 knots over the ground and that was with a supposedly fair tide. We had two hours before the tide would turn foul and I began to worry about not making it in time and even possibly being forced to turn tail and run back to Ramsgate.
Our cause was not helped by a yacht apparently tacking towards Dover in front of us. We eased off to let him pass ahead of us and then he prompty "tacked" and came back out again. We had to drop the engine speed to idle which, when the track data is examined, at least explains our lack of progress. With the engine idling we were going backwards at over 3 knots!
I was harbouring suspicions about the yacht in question and sure enough I spotted the give away evidence that he was actually motor sailing - there was copious quantites of water being ejected from his wet exhaust!
Blow me though if he didn't then "tack" back and aim back across our bows on a collision course so precise it could have been calculated. By now, he had barely a handkerchief of genoa showing and a scrap of mainsail. There was absolutely no way that he was making the speed he was making under sail and having been fooled once I was having none of it and stood on (as required by ColRegs for two vessels under motor in that circumstance) forcing him to duck our stern.
At that point he gave up and put his sails away!
There was a third yacht astern of both of us who had been, I guess, trying to find the best strategy for making progress under sail or motor and sail. After several zig zags, they too gave it up as a bad job. They were bigger than us and the other guy and were able to make a bit better speed so they got ahead but not by a lot.
By now, we were all struggling badly to make any progress at all. We all had the same thought - forget what the tide should be doing and get as close inshore as we dared. That made all the difference and made it to the entrance into Dover in, by now, very challenging sea conditions.
It can often be a roller coaster ride into and out of the harbour at Dover but this was the most challenging one yet. We had to cross a big sea with 2 to 3 metre short steep waves beam on to get into the harbour. To make matters worse, we had to wait, bows on into the sea with just enough power to give steerage way, for a ferry to enter before we could follow him in. It was a bit too exciting but we made it in without any damage and with remarkably little gear flying around below deck.
That was the day all over bar the beer. And we didn't go wild on the beer, having just a couple of pints (and dinner) at Cullins Yard before retiring early.
The decision had already been made that unless there was a drastic improvement in the forecast, we'd be using our rest day today in Dover instead of later in the week. It's a decision not without potentual downsides if the weather isn't as forecast over the next few days but with conditions predicted to be as bad today as they were towards the end of yesterday, we'd struggle to make Sovereign Harbour at Eastbourne, the next available port, in daylight, if indeed we made it at all.
Tomorrow looks a little better. Not a lot better but enough of an improvement to make an attempt to reach Eastbourne viable. We've also had a look at the option of crossing over to the French coast but with the tide times and the wind forecast it doesn't really work.
So we're currently hoping to clear out of Dover bright and early in the morning for what promises to be a slog, and probably a slog under motor at that, to Eastbourne. Deja bloody Vu because it's exactly what Glen and I were faced with nearly a year ago.
It'll be worth it though as it will position us nicely for an improvement, hopefully, in the weather from Wednesday onwards.
The track and key log points from yesterday ...
Kit was sorted out, a final shopping run made and all was ready by late afternoon.
I had planned for the possibility of the weather being too brisk to make anchoring downriver an attractive proposition and that was indeed the case. So we ate and had a few beers on board before retiring for an all too brief sleep.
We needed to make an early start to make the best of the tides so it was up, up and away at the ungodly hour of 4.00am. There was astonishing little wind given the forecast so we motored downriver, putting the sails up on the way. As we approached the entrance to the River Roach, the breeze finaly picked up enough to stop the noise machine.
With the tide helping us along, we wetre making a good 5 knots over the ground and as we cleared the land and got out into the Whitaker Channel the wind picked up and so did our speed.
We covered the 25 miles to the South West Sunk crossing in just over 4 hours. With the engine idling in neutral as a precsaution, we felt our way through the as yet unnamed gat through the sands and, if anything, I'd say it's deeper than it was last year.
We kept the engine idling as we crossed the Black Deep as there was a small feeder container ship coming up the channel on a collision course. As a sailing vessel (with caveats that didn't apply in this case) we were the stand on vessel but he showed no signs of altering course. If anything he was edging further to starboard and reducing our predicted CPA (closest point of approach).
I had a sneaky feeling he was shaping up to pass down Fisherman's Gat to I tried to call him on the VHF with no response. I executed a DSC call which, after a delay, was acknowledged but still no communication. As I'd guessed, he did indeed turn into the gat and we breathed again and stopped the engine, which had never been in gear.
By now, it was getting a bit too exciting for full sail although we were hitting over 7.5 knots at times.
I'd decided based on experience gained that the next time I needed to reef Pagan down, I'd drop the mizzen to see if that improved the balance of the reefed sail plain. With the first reef in the main, a moderate amount of genoa rolled away and the mizzen stowed she was much better behaved.
We had an excellent sail down to the North Foreland and on past Ramsgate. We put in a tack into the outer reached of Pegwell Bay to avoid an oncoming fishing boat and on the next "good" tack the wind started to head us and our speed began to drop off.
With only 10 miles to go to Dover and the conditions becoming tiring on top of a short night's sleep, I made the pragmatic decision to get the engine on and burn a bit of diesel to get into Dover sooner rather than later. It turned out to be a very fortunate decision.
Within an hour of making that call, the wind got up and, significantly, so did the sea state. Our speed over the ground bombed from around 5 knots to, at times, less than a knot and even with the revs piled on we were struggling to maintain 2 knots over the ground and that was with a supposedly fair tide. We had two hours before the tide would turn foul and I began to worry about not making it in time and even possibly being forced to turn tail and run back to Ramsgate.
Our cause was not helped by a yacht apparently tacking towards Dover in front of us. We eased off to let him pass ahead of us and then he prompty "tacked" and came back out again. We had to drop the engine speed to idle which, when the track data is examined, at least explains our lack of progress. With the engine idling we were going backwards at over 3 knots!
I was harbouring suspicions about the yacht in question and sure enough I spotted the give away evidence that he was actually motor sailing - there was copious quantites of water being ejected from his wet exhaust!
Blow me though if he didn't then "tack" back and aim back across our bows on a collision course so precise it could have been calculated. By now, he had barely a handkerchief of genoa showing and a scrap of mainsail. There was absolutely no way that he was making the speed he was making under sail and having been fooled once I was having none of it and stood on (as required by ColRegs for two vessels under motor in that circumstance) forcing him to duck our stern.
At that point he gave up and put his sails away!
There was a third yacht astern of both of us who had been, I guess, trying to find the best strategy for making progress under sail or motor and sail. After several zig zags, they too gave it up as a bad job. They were bigger than us and the other guy and were able to make a bit better speed so they got ahead but not by a lot.
By now, we were all struggling badly to make any progress at all. We all had the same thought - forget what the tide should be doing and get as close inshore as we dared. That made all the difference and made it to the entrance into Dover in, by now, very challenging sea conditions.
It can often be a roller coaster ride into and out of the harbour at Dover but this was the most challenging one yet. We had to cross a big sea with 2 to 3 metre short steep waves beam on to get into the harbour. To make matters worse, we had to wait, bows on into the sea with just enough power to give steerage way, for a ferry to enter before we could follow him in. It was a bit too exciting but we made it in without any damage and with remarkably little gear flying around below deck.
That was the day all over bar the beer. And we didn't go wild on the beer, having just a couple of pints (and dinner) at Cullins Yard before retiring early.
The decision had already been made that unless there was a drastic improvement in the forecast, we'd be using our rest day today in Dover instead of later in the week. It's a decision not without potentual downsides if the weather isn't as forecast over the next few days but with conditions predicted to be as bad today as they were towards the end of yesterday, we'd struggle to make Sovereign Harbour at Eastbourne, the next available port, in daylight, if indeed we made it at all.
Tomorrow looks a little better. Not a lot better but enough of an improvement to make an attempt to reach Eastbourne viable. We've also had a look at the option of crossing over to the French coast but with the tide times and the wind forecast it doesn't really work.
So we're currently hoping to clear out of Dover bright and early in the morning for what promises to be a slog, and probably a slog under motor at that, to Eastbourne. Deja bloody Vu because it's exactly what Glen and I were faced with nearly a year ago.
It'll be worth it though as it will position us nicely for an improvement, hopefully, in the weather from Wednesday onwards.
The track and key log points from yesterday ...
