The Adventures of Sunboy the Sailboat

Crossing the English Channel and our first few days in France

8:59 AM, Jun. 14, 2009

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The Channel and beyond…………Crossing the English Channel for the first time.

Well the long awaited time had finally come and Debs and I were up pretty early to get going. We had to wait for a bit of tide to come into the harbour so that there was enough water under the keel to get out. We had been put in between two pylons and at low tide we simply could not leave because the water wasn’t deep enough just beyond the boat. We had two other boats rafted up to us as well so it took a bit of work to get out but we did and we were on our way about 6.45am.

It was a brilliant morning and we were bloody excited to be finally heading off across the Channel. Because we had to wait for a bit of tide to fill, it meant that we had to work against the tide going through the channel at the north west of the Isle of Wight and the Mainland. We motored through this area as we had to get through as quick as we could or we might have increased our travel time considerably.

Once we got down through the Needles and turned to the south, we put up our sails and set our course for France. Bit of a thrill I have to say, setting sail to another country, makes the trips around Split Solitary Island seem a bit different in comparison!!

Whilst we were so looking forward to new countries and new experiences, Debs and I both agree that the Isle of Wight is a very special part of the world. We loved the place and can really understand why the Brits and so many others enjoy sailing in those waters and experiencing everything the Island has to offer.

We sailed south, the winds were reasonably light and it was quite fascinating to be steering a course on the compass and then see what course you were actually doing ‘over the ground’ as they say in navigation speak. People who have done this trip regularly advised us to just set the course you want to go to and as the trip progresses you will be pushed one way up the Channel for a few hours and then back down the other way as the tide changes and sure enough, that’s what it did.

We ended up motor sailing for a fair bit of the way because the winds just died off and rather than sit there and bob around doing a couple of knots, we wanted to get there and enter the harbour with good light and conditions. We had heard that crossing the shipping lanes was like trying to walk across a freeway at peak traffic times and we decided to have a bit of a ballot as to the number of ships we would see. The system they have is that northbound ships have to stay within a certain ‘path’ heading up the Channel and the same for south bound ships in their own channel. In between the shipping lanes is a transit area.

Slowly but surely we lost sight of England and continued south toward Cherbourg. Cherbourg is a pretty common stopping point for a lot of people crossing the Channel, especially newbie channel crossers such as ourselves as it is accessible in all states of tide and in all weather. It is about 70 miles from Yarmouth to Cherbourg and we hoped to be there mid to late afternoon.

Maritime regulations mean that you can’t simply meander across the shipping lanes as you please but you need to cross them at right angles to the direction of traffic. From what we had been told, I was envisaging having to side step huge ships all through the lanes and I thought we would be seeing far more ships than we actually did. Nikki’s punt was between 20 and 40 ships and in the end I think we saw about 19 so she got the gong for the day. I think we were pretty lucky as we got through both the north bound and south bound lanes without having to divert course, or causing any ships to alter course to get around us, something I don’t think they really ever want to do. With their size and speed we consider it is best for us to stay right out of their way.

The girls just cruised along the whole trip. Layni spent her time playing Sims 2 on the computer, every so often coming up top to see what was going on and have a cuddle with Debs on the ever so comfy pet cushions that were turning into cockpit lounges. Nik read and chatted most of the way as she does, seeming very, very comfortable at sea.

As we were motor sailing, we could use the auto pilot so that meant not having to steer all the way but you needed to keep a bit of a sharp eye on the water ahead as every so often you would see bits of flotsam and jetsam that could give the old boat a bit of a knock if you hit it. Debs and I took it in turns to be ‘on watch’ at the helm and on lookout. Debs organised lunch on the way and she is becoming such a trooper on the boat, and is able to do things that not so long ago would have seemed a big no no.

Considering how crook she used to get to now being able to go below and prepare food and help the kids out is just brilliant. Debs also does the navigating during our passages and each hour she goes through the routine of plotting our position on the chart, recording those details in our log book, estimating the distance to go, the course we need to steer, records the barometric pressure reading and compares that to the previous hour to see if we have a rising or falling barometer, records the wind speed and direction along with our boat speed and course. So that means she spends a fair bit of time at the Nav table and of course every hour we also check our bilges to make sure everything is nice and dry. Might seem a bit over the top to some but we are happy with what we do and we just consider it sensible practice, plus it helps to pass the time!!.

We had a little visitor two thirds along the way, a homing pigeon with a UK leg ring decided to drop in for a bit of a rest. He stayed with us walking around the cockpit like he owned the place, crapping in about every corner and making himself very much at home. The kids named him Pete the pommie pigeon. He hung around for about an hour and then hopped up on my leg as I was having a bit of a lay down and flew off. We saw him head back toward England and thought he must have been on his way home, feeling much lighter now that he had emptied his bowels all over our boat. Lo and behold, 15 minutes later I looked back to the north and like a fighter plane coming from in front of the sun, here comes Pete, zeroing in on our stern once more. He plonked himself back down, snuggled up under his wings and promptly went to sleep and stayed there for the entire trip to France!

Apart from our feathered friend, the only other thing of note that happened was our first little experience with tidal eddies. I was at the helm and we were under sail only with no motor. We had been going for about 8 hours and when I looked down at the compass, it was rotating and as I turned the helm, it continued to rotate. I looked at the chart plotter and it was doing the same thing, my initial reaction was there was a gear malfunction but when I looked and saw the sun going around the mast I realised we were in a tidal eddy and the boat was simply turning circles!!! We were still quite a few miles from the French coast but here we were doing the English Channel merry go round. Quick start of the engine and forward gear got us through it without any concern whatsoever but it just blew us away as to the little quirks that nature can create.

We finally got some decent wind and were on a beam reach for the rest of the way into Cherbourg. We dropped our sails and motored into the harbour and went about organising our berth. The harbour is very busy as you can imagine and our first taste of small pontoons for bigger boats was soon to be experienced. The marinas are very tight squeezes and they expect you to put your boat, no matter what size onto what appears to be a very small pontoon, for us, about half the length of our boat. With no real room to work with and tides and wind working against you it is a bit of a bloody nightmare, bow thruster or not. It seems like it is the national spectator sport for all crews on boats who are safely tucked up on their pontoon, watching the new kids come in and try their skills.

Try as best we could, it was causing just far too many problems for our big girl and luckily for us, a space became available on an outer pontoon that we thought we might be able to squeeze onto. Another stroke of luck was some friends we had made in Yarmouth on the weekend of my birthday, James and Rhona Randell and their young son Matthew were berthed up on the same pontoon and were there to give us a hand. We got tied up and touched down on France, finally having crossed the English Channel.

Their hospitality skills had not waned one skerrick and no sooner had we tied the boat up than we were in their cockpit having a glass of French wine to celebrate our crossing. That continued and we ended up having nibbles with them, champagne was opened and then they turned on dinner for us. Have to say it was just the best way to end the trip across and I fell into bed about midnight, very tired and not having a care in the world.

Jim and Rhona and Matthew had to leave quite quickly the next morning to catch the tide to their next port of call so it was hasty goodbyes and thank you so much and still they managed to leave us a little gift, an electric jug suitable for boats as it doesn’t draw too much power from the genny: great people and so typical of so many of the Brits we met in the Solent.

So here we were in France. I got out one of the fold up pushies from the lazarette and went for a ride into Cherbourg to buy the obligatory croissants pain au chocolat and baguettes for brekkie. Being brutally honest, Cherbourg is not the most attractive town and as the allies almost levelled the place during the war you can understand why most of the buildings do not have the same degree of beautiful French Architecture and features as so many other places in France do.

We thought me might try and hire a car and do some day trips to the Normandy beach areas where the D- Day Invasions took place but with 6 out of 7 car hire places having no cars and Avis wanting to charge us over $300.00 for one days car hire we looked at other options.

We ended up catching a bus ($8.00 for the family thank you very much) to a village called St Mere Eglise which was the most strategic village that had to be liberated during the Invasion. Paratroopers were flown to the area while the invasion took place on the beaches and the intention was for the paratroopers to liberate the village and once the beachhead was secured, they could then have road access to head back north and take Cherbourg and other vital areas.

Obviously the fighting was brutally intense as both the allies and the Germans were fully aware of what this stage of the war meant to all parties. We went to the Paratrooper museum and learnt so much about what when on during this famous period of the war. The village gets its name from the Church in the centre and there is another piece of history still attached to the Church to this day. There is a replica of a paratrooper by the name of John Steele who happened to land on the Church and his parachute got caught on the Church spire. He spent some hours there, being shot at and feigning his death before he was captured, only to escape some hours later and continue the fighting.

Obviously there is a fair bit of tourism about the place and there are American, French and other allied flags all over the place but it is very clear that the French have never forgotten that the Americans liberated their village and how proud they are that their village was the first to be liberated during the war. We had a very memorable and moving day there, made even more special by meeting up with some Aussies who were on their honeymoon, having been married in Italy a few weeks before.

We ended up spending a couple of days more in Cherbourg, taking in the town markets and going to a Hugo Pratt exhibition at the local art gallery. We used our bikes a lot there as the shops and markets were a bit of a walk from the boat. I still consider going to the speciality shops in France one of my life’s greatest pleasures, well that is until you take the stuff home and eat it!! No one makes bread, cheeses and pate like the French.

Well the next part of our journey soon entered the planning stage and we were setting off to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. We had never been there before and were looking forward to the challenge of going through the infamous Alderney Race and on to new adventures and experiences.

To be continued………………..

Crossing the English Channel and our first few days in France

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