I haven’t written anything in this blog for a couple of years, but right now we find ourselves stuck in the lovely small town of Lezardrieux on the north Brittany coast. Not so awful, but we’ve been here two days so far and it looks like at least one more before the winds start to die down a little.
We left the Deben at the end of May, heading round to the south coast with our eventual destination Falmouth, where we’ve arranged a mooring at St. Just for the rest of the season. The weather hasn’t been helpful. Not too bad at first, but initially had to wait a day in Ramsgate due to strong winds. However, we took a bus to Margate, which was delightful (in parts!) with a visit to the Turner gallery – which by the way, doesn’t have any Turners.
Next stop Eastbourne, then Shoreham – an interesting location next to a power station – and into the Solent. Tim arranged a berth for us on the Royal Southern YC pontoon at members rates, and we had a couple of evenings catching up with him, before moving on to a nostalgic visit to Cowes, where I used to have a flat and kept a boat for quite a few years – but rather shocked to realise that was 30 years ago!
The forecast was not looking good, with strong westerlies so decided to get across to Poole while we could. It was still blowing a good force as we tacked down the Solent and out past the Needles, and got quite lumpy crossing the bay to Poole. More wind forecast for the next day, so we stayed in Poole and had a day trip to the glorious Brownsea Island. Lots of wildlife to see, including the unbelievably cute red squirrels, and spotted an osprey cruising overhead.
At this point, with dismal grey skies and blasting westerlies, we decided to take a leg across to the Channel Islands and left at 5am the next morning. We had a fast reach across the channel and through the Alderney race (very strong tide, up to 6 knots!) but then got the tides against us approaching St. Peter Port. The last few miles took a couple of hours, barely making 2 knots over the ground against the 4 knot tide in the Big Russel channel between Guernsey and Sark.
We had three nights in Guernsey, with a day spent on boat maintenance and a day out on the island, making use of the excellent bus service. With lighter winds forecast we thought we’d try our luck with a mooring off the small island of Sark. It only took us an hour or so to get across and find the mooring bouys, then we blew up the dinghy and went ashore, clambering up the steep steps to the plateau 300 ft above. The island is beautiful, and with the sun shining the anchorage looked like it could have been in the Med – although the temperature didn’t quite match up! The island has a busy tourist trade, with day trippers and several hotels, but hasn’t been spoilt – no cars allowed, only tractors and horses.
The night on the mooring wasn’t so comfortable, with a swell coming in from the west. But we were off early with a splendid reach across to the north Brittany coast in sunshine and moderate winds.
So here we are, waiting for the wind to moderate enough to work a little further west, before making the crossing over to Falmouth.