Friday 17 May

To get across the Channel in daylight we have to start out at 5:00am.  It is awfully cold.  I have put on so many layers I can barely move.  I am wearing my silk long johns, a long sleeved tee shirt, an intermediate fleece, a warm fleece and my full waterproofs.  Richard is similarly togged up.  Despite the cold, the weather is not bad; there is some sun. The wind is blowing from the east, with a bit of north in it. We sail out past Hurst Castle and then on past the Needles.  Goodbye England.

We start with a force 4, but it is the top of a 5 for most of the trip.  Richard has plotted us a course to let the tide take us west and then east.  We have taken turns having a bit of a sleep on the way to make up for our very early start.  The sea is quite lumpy.  We have waves of up to two metres.  It is far too rocky for me to go below to make food.  But my provisioning has come into its own.  We have giant chocolate biscuits for breakfast and Cornish pasties for lunch.  I am grateful for having a seasick patch on! 

As we are approaching Alderney we are still a bit far west and find that we are ahead of schedule to get to the Alderney race, so the tide will be against us.  So instead Richard decides that we will go through the Swinge.  The timing is better and it is a shorter route to Guernsey.  As soon as we get to the Swinge the sea flattens a lot, although it is still somewhat lumpy.  But that makes the last bit of the journey much more comfortable.  So at 7:00pm, just 14 hours we tie up to the waiting pontoon at St Peter Port.  We knew we would have to wait to get in to the Marina.  The tide won’t come up to get over the sill until about 10:00pm.  But that is fine.  We are really pleased to be here at last.  

We have time for me to cook dinner on board - sausages and mash on the basis that this will be the last of English sausages.  We manage to stay awake until we can get in to the Marina.  It is very empty.  We have never seen so few boats here, but then again, it is earlier in the season than when we have been here before.  We are moored next to a Southerly 38.  No one is on board.  We think they have left it here ready for the Regatta at the end of the month.