Weymouth to St Peter Port (Guernsey)

As usual, the timings for this trip meant a silly o'clock start - leaving Weymouth just after first light. Heading out it was very quiet - a few yachts had left a little earlier and we think that was brave as there were plenty of pot markers scattered around the harbour entrance when we walked around there a day ago.

We didn't quite bother with the first light thing though, enjoying an extra 20 mins or so of sleep before heading out:

The tide was a pretty strong spring offering and we started to fight it as we went down the side of Portland. Then, as you can see from our course, we got nicely swept to the east as we followed a constant compass course that was designed to have us swept to the east, then a  little way back westwards - just enough to keep us out of the traffic separation zone. That worked pretty well:

and we then had the benefit of a fair tide from the Casquets all the way down to St Peter Port. 10.4 knots passing the Casquets at 1650rpm seemed pretty good really. The sea state was kindly, even though the forecast "F4 variable" was actually "F4 on the nose" all the way. Just a little residual Atlantic swell which the stabilisers laughed at. Around the Casquets it was a bit more confused with the strong tidal stream and rapid depth changes but nothing dramatic at all.

We made the normal pilgrimage down the Little Russel channel to St Peter Port and then had to hold off for a while waiting for the Commodore Clipper ferry to enter the harbour and dock. For anyone who was following us on Marinetraffic or similar, that is why we looped the loop on the way in.

This time there was no sign of the grumpy and unhelpful harbour assistant Clint. Just the normal friendly service we've come to enjoy over many years visiting the place. We were told that we could go into the marina area as there was a spot deep enough for us. Amazed - this was a UK Bank holiday week! We dropped onto the cruise liner tender pontoon to wait for the tide to rise a little more and give us enough depth over the cill then headed into our favourite little corner in Victoria marina.

The trip took just over 10 hours and was delightful - even if the crew missed some of it:

No maintenance issues to report. The keel cooler for the main engine is clearly pretty messed up now as the temperature difference between the flow and return was down to 15 F or so - normally it runs at 30. We guess that a long wide open throttle run would cause some trouble. Good job that the lift out is next on the agenda.