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
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