Climbing hills, and again

Well, we went a bit mad and decided to take the cliff path walk from St Peter Port to Fermain Bay as it was a nice but breezy day. The ferries to Herm looked packed so we thought that there was little chance of "getting away from it all" over there.

The walk has some lovely coastal views, as an example looking back towards Castle Cornet with the MSC Opera cruise liner anchored off:

As the weather had been a little wet beforehand, the path was a challenge for people who had foolishly set off in Fit-Flops. We were not the only two foolish people though and much amusement was had by the sensible folks in their walking boots who passed those of us less well shod.

Still, we made Fermain Bay with no mishaps and enjoyed lunch sitting outside near the old gun turret:

the bay was so beautiful just a bit too much wave motion because of the wind direction to make it a good anchorage today:

That evening, we had another "yacht hits Nordhavn" moment. Yet again whilst we were tied up. A new looking Hanse 470 yacht approached the empty pontoon space ahead of us just as we were dishing up dinner. He got closer and closer to our bow as he headed in, the crew started pushing off from our hull, then the helmsman did too. by now, the captain was heading outside ready to get very annoyed. The stern of the yacht missed out bow by the proverbial fag packet but the wooden flagstaff hit our anchor platform, then got wrapped around the anchor which promptly chewed the end off it. They managed to berth with a slightly chewed look to the flagstaff and a very bent fitting that it was mounted in. We got away with bits of timber on our anchor this time.

When the captain went to see what damage they had caused, the other skipper simply said "we hit your anchor, our bow thruster isn't working and they haven't fixed it so mooring up is hard". No apology, no nothing. It took lots of self control to stop telling them that normal people manage boats without bow thrusters and if they cannot, then they should not venture out. Looks like 2014 is going to be a good year for hull damage...

Bank holiday Monday was a Guernsey Hill Climb event, starting from the end of the promenade area and heading up one of the local roads. An interesting mix of vehicles took part, from a pink Fiesta through to some serious single seater race cars. The bikers were very brave / stupid:

and not the only ones to lift a front wheel when setting off:

This guy had a moment on the first bend and ended up pointing the wrong way. There were also some tasty single seat race cars that just flew up the hill:

It was good to stand and sniff  Castrol R oil again. You can take the nice cars away from a petrolhead, but he remains a petrolhead at heart....

We plan to head off tomorrow for either Falmouth or Jersey. How will we pick which one? Well, it depends upon the weather forecast - whichever is supposed to be nicest for a few days wins.