St Peter Port to Dartmouth

As is often the case, optimum timing for this trip was not optimum for the crew. Either a stupidly early start or a stupidly late arrival. We kind of compromised and tried to leave just as there would be some visibility and before the tide started setting strongly against us down the side of Guernsey.

All that translated to a 4:15am alarm clock. Izzy looked unimpressed. A 4:45am walk for her in the dark was a bit strange too. At least it allowed us to leave early and to achieve a sensible timing compromise.

An overview of the route looks simple enough, with the S shape caused when we allow the tide to carry us east to begin with then to push us back to the west:

Why that funny little kink in the middle of it? Well, there is a big traffic separation zone and we just avoid the west end of it on this trip. However, you have the big commercial guys who have been penned into a lane popping out like corks and spraying off in different directions depending upon where they are bound. For those approaching from the west, they "home in" to their part of the zone from all directions in a similar manner.

This crossing treated us to the busiest shipping activity we have ever seen in the area:

and you can see the first of many "wiggles" through the gaggles of big guys in our red track line.

We get ahead of ourselves - it was pretty misty and so we had fun with the new radars and the FLIR (twilight conditions) spotting both pot markers and ships. The FLIR did an excellent job finding the little markers and telling us which marks on the water were birds (they are hotter!) The doppler radar worked well, the automatic flagging up of "dangerous" targets (ie those heading our way) worked well as did the full automatic tuning. We always had to play with our older units to optimise the image as the auto-tune worked "up to a point". Lessons from Captain Rae (now retired) needed soon on how to set up the new kit. Colin - we have gin on board....

Our first enforced course alteration was down to the Fagelgracht who was heading for Holland. New in shipping terms as well, 2011 build. Not pretty though through the mist:

Followed by several more. This wasn't aided by a couple of fishing boats ambling around in the middle of the separation zone. Twice we had to more or less turn and run parallel to the shipping and make a gap between them that we could cross. At least it was calm, no nasty swell and just a gentle F3/4 from the NE that was not kicking up much in the way of waves.

The more we use the new Furuno kit, the more we like it. Clarity of screen presentation, handling of AIS targets, radar integration and FLIR integration work well. The ability to run a remote screen on our tablet and control the system from that is nice but not terribly useful. I think it will come into its own when we need an anchor watch alarm set overnight.

Once clear of the TSS area the shipping activity was quiet and we could enjoy the run more. Izzy did her lookout thing again:

and we contemplated where to go in Dartmouth. The Dart Marina folks told us there were no free berths. April 1 is the typical "all change" date when bertholders move between marinas. It seemed that nobody had left yet. The Harbour authority folks will no longer let us stay on the mid-river pontoon that we have used for years (about 8!) as we are now too long. Funny that, same pontoon as always, same ground anchors, same boat, but we are sure they have a reason that isn't just victimisation of small Nordhavn boats. Yes, remember we are a small Nordhavn. The mid river buoys that we could hang between are not really very practical - they are spaced for boats of around 100' length not 50'. Luckily the nice folks in Darthaven Marina having said they were full called us back and found a nice hammerhead slot for us. At least we had a home to aim for.

The entry to the Dart was as lovely as ever, this time on the flybridge as the wind had died down. We happily moored up around 11.5 hours after starting the engine in Guernsey with no particular dramas on the way. Just lots of wriggling around. As it was such a lovely evening, we treated ourselves to a G and T on the flybridge. Izzy wanted to join in:

She is a lot like her mum really but gin is not appropriate for a 4 year old!

Maintenance news: nothing new to report. The Captain sorted out the depth offset on the little Furuno gauge on the flybridge (it had not copied the offset from the main system). Also we need to do the first of many cleaning jobs on the touch screens in the pilothouse....