St Peter Port to Torquay

As there was a nice calmiish day forecast and the doglet likes calm trips as does the crew, we decided to head back to the English south coast. They predicted that the wind would drop and the sea state with it during the day. Departure was just before 6am and that was good timing as several commercial vessels were leaving shortly afterwards and the harbour entrance gets closed during their movements.

Plenty of following tide raced us up the Little Russel channel along the eastern side of Guernsey. Then we let the east going tide take us as it wished, having calculated that we would get roughly the same shove west when it turned around lunchtime. It was grey and overcast so no nice pictures to share. When we got to the Traffic Separation Zone, it was a bit busy as you can see from this plotter image:

Luckily we managed to thread through the gap between the two clumps of ships, avoiding them all without a course diversion by increasing speed a little for one big guy that we otherwise would have been on a collision course with. You can see how we were carried east, then crossing the shipping lanes at right angles, then letting the tide take us west:

On the way, we so enjoyed a thick fogbank as we crossed the shipping lanes. We only "saw" the big guys on the AIS plot and by radar. So, again, no pictures. However, it cleared as we approached the English coast and some dolphins came to play. Izzy was beside herself with excitement, being held so she could watch them perform their tricks in our bow wave:

We then retired to the flybridge as it was getting warmer and, of course, Izzy was convinced that there had to be more out there to watch and enjoy. She was on alert and scanning the bow area for ages:

As we approached Torquay we saw plenty of activity. Trip boats trundling around inside the harbour, one waiting outside, yachts doing lots of funny manoeuvres in the entrance etc etc. We were heading into the "posh" MDL marina there. Yes, we are most unimpressed with MDL corporate and the way they run Hythe Marina where our house is. We normally refuse to give them any business anywhere as they would not give us the expected number of free 12 metre visitor nights that come with the berth outside our house. However, during the winter they had a fire sale going on. You could buy 5 nights berthing for £110. Er? One night here at the ludicrous MDL visitor rates would cost us around £104!

We were given a finger berth that was fun to slot into:

and we happily settled down for the evening after giving the dog some much needed exercise. The flybridge view of the town looked pretty drab in the overcast conditions:

but our mood was rather good because of the nice calm crossing, the cheap berthing and the friendly marina folks who didn't want to impose the usual MDL punitive charge for plugging into the power. It always amazes us how the marina staff in their various locations are so good when working for such a tricky organisation. 

The main reason for coming here is that we've not visited for ages - certainly not since we stopped working 12 years ago, so a chance to explore Torbay a bit was tempting.

The trip over took around 11.5 hours and the boat behaved well, despite being over 4 tons heavier then when we went the other way. No maintenance stuff to report at all, no spanners or big hammers were needed. By the way, we had been good and completed the on-line customs / border control reporting that is needed when you return from the Channel Islands. We also flew the compulsory yellow flag as we entered UK waters, which you are not supposed to remove until the authorities have said you can. I fear that ours will be very shabby after a winter left outside. We've never ever in all the years we have been boating received any approval or feedback bar automated messages. Great system.