We left Alderney for a visit to Guernsey. We set sail with a sail plan to pass from Alderney, directly through The Swinge. The Swinge is an area renown for over-currents and disturbed seas. We took this route as we thought we might get a glimpse of a Puffin or two. No such luck. Some of the rocky isolated islands along the way were covered in Gannets though.
The wind stated off at a very civilized 16 knots and built to 24 knots as we arrived in St. Peter Port, Guernsey's main yachting marina. We were glad to get out of that wind but had to wait for a whopping great big ferry to exit before entering into the somewhat wind protected Port St Peter Marina area. Inside the port, we were a little concerned about our draft - Chloe's centerboard drops down to 2.8m when 'down'; meaning that Low tides are a bit dicey in shallow mainas. We could bring up the centerboard to 1.1m draft but in that state our near field steering is a little like driving a car on an ice rink. She just wants to skid sideways when there's any wind. So it's a balance of 'a bit of centerboard & a safe draft versus the ability to avoid hitting other solid objects.
As it turned out, we arrived at the wrong (old) visitor's spot (so much for the 'V' on charts) and a local harbor master in a Rib came flying out and asked us what our docking plan was? After realizing we had little to no real clue , he said "Follow me". And led us into a VERY tightly packed spot on the far side of the very crowded marina. Miraculously, we waited, paused, rotated, bow thrusted and angled ourselves until lined up for a final white knuckled dash into a very tight spot on the dock and skidded sideways into a miraculously, perfect landing on the Visitor's floating dock. Neptune was kind to us this day. We had less than a foot beyond the bow and the stern. Our comparative 'battle tank' with her massive 33Kg Rocna hovered threateningly over the next boat's plastic transom - we secured our spring lines extra tight and all was good. .
Peter, Ran for a beer to stop him self from 'shaking' - although our docking went perfectly, he still pretended to be stressed as an excuse to run for a beer. The next day we just drifted over to an adjacent dock with walking access to the shore. Chloe drew a lot too attention from a visiting French Regatta as they hung out their laundry. A bunch of admiring French sailors wandered up to Chloe and to tell us that, "She's French you know?". Peter told them she was actually a copy from North Korea... just because that's the kind of shit he likes to stir up. They ended up laughing... The French sailors are very proud of their unique Aluminum center board boats - as well they should be.
At one point a fully loaded up, German, production, charter boat turned up, speeding at 6 knotts and collided with us in the dock - beam on. Dawn was aghast at the lack of apologies.. Peter felt good about it, as it somewhat minimized the lack of his own docking skills.
Guernsey, it turns out, is far larger Channel Island and is a somewhat different place to Alderney. None of the small island friendliness or charm that Alderney has to offer but is replaced instead with typical mid-sized town facilities, commerce and lots of, mainly English, people. We walked around the island but felt that it was really far more like a typical south coast English country/seaside town.... 'not a Special place, like Alderney is.
We fueled up in Guernsey as the cost of a diesel fill up, being in the order of $1000, was significantly less in the Channel Isles, when compared to the EU and our (subsequently wrong) impression was that Alderney fuel dock was a bit tight to reach. The Guernsey fuel dock drys at low water, meaning that it is only a patch of mud. So fueling timed for a high tide is required. Even at high tide, we had very little water under our keel as we bumped up agains the dock to fill up with an extra 500L of juice. Simple, enough to do.
Alderney again
We sailed back to Alderney using the same route through the Swinge that we had left by. This time the Swinge presented itself in it's 'true state'. Current ran against wind and suddenly we hit with an area of heavy sea. Out of no where, the seas suddenly piled up to 6ft waves - like that of a reef. It was a little concerning, to say the least but we both also wanted to see how Chloe would deal with this. Plus, a small plastic boat on our tail seemed to be following our lead. We headed on in to the Swing and took it as a full frontal. Chloe, pushed her way through the heavy waves like a bull dozer through a pile of snowy moguls. In our previous experience, and also looking over our shoulder at the little boat behind us, a light weight boat would have been uncomfortably bouncy, to say the least. We had chartered a 42ft plastic production boat in the past and used that as a comparison. Chloes' 16 tonne displacement simply plowed through waves with hardly any disturbance. This was the first time we made a conclusion that Chloe is a VERY solid and sound boat designed for heavy seas. This was not a subtle conclusion but one that we were made aware of in a very obvious sense.
We slipped around the corner of Alderney's sea wall, avoiding more Swingy waters at the tip of breakwater and found a BIG solid Buoy to hang to. We relaxed. We loved Alderney.
To moor to the buoy's steel ring, we used our new 18mm octoplait strop with 2 meters of 10mm chain spliced into the center of its length. Once we had adjusted the length it worked well. We added a 10mm Dynema braided rope in parallel as a safety back up. The winds were due to rise up to 30 knots, from the East, this night.
As our third time visiting Alderney we took another Bike ride around the island and then visited Alderney's Thai restaurant. Great Food and 30MB/S Wifi.
Alderney has Great Wifi in many businesses - clearly the locals understand how important it is for visiting yachties. There are two large microwave towers on Alderney's skyline. Hopefully the harbour will get some good wifi projected out to their outer buoys also, in time. Perhaps a new 12dB, omni-direction antenna mounted on a pole at the end of the harbor pier would do it???... just a thought : )
Next we had to return again to Cherbourg to have some engine fixes done and to pick up our EPRIB for the second time. When we first bought our EPIRB it had been programmed incorrectly for a US boat. We had had to return it to the Cherbourg shop, for reprogramming. This meant we had to sail back to Cherbourg, instead of heading out.
Our Volvo engine was also suffering from excess belt dust. The Volvo dealer told us that the problem was just 'bad belts', and that it happens occasionally. They said that no pully/belt alignment was needed and we felt that the belt tension was good. At the time, we found this hard to believe - that belts cold bay that much in quality - but 10 engine hours later - the belt dust had completely disappeared. So we concluded that the quality control of belts is perhaps a little lax.
With Engine belts and EPRIB fixed, we're ready to set off again. This time we hope to be able to set off without having to return to Cherbourg. The only piece of equipment missing from Chloe is her Gennaker sail. We're trying to put a nice graphic of Chloe on it - so this is taking a little more time. Garcia said they'd ship to us.
As we were running out of Schengen Visa days we needed to get out of the Schengen area soon. This presented us with the challenge of our first English Channel crossing. Both England and Ireland are not part of the Schengen area - so we can stay there for 90 days while our Schengen visa days are reset.
Sailing one the English channel turned out to be no super big deal for a boat like Chloe. The TSS, as we had read about, needed to be crossed such that the boat is aligned perpendicular to the channel. Even though the strong tides of the English Channel will push the boat East or West, changing our Course Over Ground , the physical orientation of the boat needs to present other larger ships with her lights in the most obvious way. In other words we should not correct our heading to account for local current, when crossing the shipping lanes; our little boat must be kept perpendicular to the path of oncoming ships.
We set off for Dartmouth as a destination that is close, quiet, easy to negotiate and scenic. As it turns out this is a great choice.
Chloe sped from Cherbourg to Dartmouth at 8 to 10 knots in winds of 15 to 25 knots.
Our near term plan is next to cruise west along the south coast of England waiting for our Schengen visa days to reset - before returning to mainland Europe and to head south down the French, Spanish and Portuguese Atlanta coasts.
