St Peter Port to St Helier (Jersey)

Firstly, some Patrick news. He has been very quiet since he was unsuccessful in his attempt to become a waterbus skipper. Ignoring all attempts to cheer him up, he has steadfastly gazed out of the pilothouse, playing the hard done by card. Well, we have chosen to ignore him a little too - let's see how long he can keep this up....

Secondly, you folks really MUST GET A LIFE!! over 10,000 reads of this drivel (excluding the internet crawling tool accesses). OK, maybe they were not reads, we should be more accurate and say "page accesses". If I stumbled across this on-line drivel thanks to a search engine, I would click away quickly too. Interestingly, Julie (a Penarth berth holder who has a Sealine motorboat that she is trying to sell if you are interested, hint hint) tried to read this blog at work. Seems like the Bank of Ireland have blocked us. Cannot recall being rude about the Irish but perhaps we should be now?

Lastly, we had a little trip today. Little as the sea was very benign - calm and empty and because the trip is a well worn route between Guernsey and Jersey. The only challenge was that leaving St Peter Port when there was still some water left and it is daylight (today this was about half tide down as half tide up was early am) meant arriving in St Helier at low water, unless you go very slowly. We did that and pitched up an hour after low tide which gave us enough water to sneak into the harbour and onto the waiting pontoon for St Helier marina.

Departing St Peter Port was fun. The aforementioned Swan yacht rally had really taken over the pontoon in St Peter Port harbour. Here is the official info Nautor Swan rally. Sails, spare anchors, chain, dinghies and other detritus littered the pontoon giving us just enough space to untie our lines (until one of the yacht crew decided that she should walk down our little remaining gap just as we were departing). Lots of very affected conversations going on too as the skippers "briefed" their crews for whatever maritime perils were to come. Briefing? More like an excuse for them to try and show off in our view. Still, they are lovely yachts even if the owners can be a little overbearing:

Anyway, we duly escaped from the Swan mob. Shame that the boats were far nicer than the people - what is it about a yacht club rally that makes them think they own wherever they are??

The trip to St Helier was pretty quiet. About four and a half hours for us and this time, no dolphins were spotted. Passing Corbiere lighthouse, this picture gives you an idea of how it was the typical grey leaden sky that we enjoy so much in the UK:

Here is a much better idea of how it looks, taken on a nicer day and borrowed from the internet:

We took the longer route to the south of Jersey, going around the shallow rocky area that lies offshore rather then using the passage between it and the island. This was to take a bit more time and arrive after dead low water. Here are the various "passages" through the rocks you can follow:

Normally we would use the NW Passage shown on the chartlet, but this time we came offshore and followed the "Leading lights 023 degrees" track which the big commercial guys use. Of course, as it was lowish water, they were not out and about.


You can see why we had to wait to enter the visitors marina area - a bit of a jump up for us to make:

So, we waited outside on the holding pontoon for a while until the tide came in and they could drop the cill gates. Apparently a French yacht tried to escape when there was not enough water last week and ended up "beached" on the gates. The yacht had to stay there until the next high tide and damaged one of the two gates that rise up once the water level drops to the height of the cill. Good job they didn't damage both or the marina would have drained down - not something we want to contemplate whilst we are in here....

Berthed inside the marina area with nice 32amp shorepower:

We then had to explore the town and try the local ice-cream for some reason. Perhaps because it was Tuesday?