Cherbourg 13th June 2017

Well the tides and the weather decided to cooperate and we set the alarm for 4.30 am so we could leave at 5 am.  The passage plan was written and we were ready for the off. The first bit was the worry as the Almanac and Pilot Guides all talk about Hurst Channel and the Needles Channel, these could be tricky and I didn't want to fall at the first hurdle.

Beautiful sunrise over Yarmouth Harbour.

However all was benign as we passed the  needles, we did however go down the channel at a fair rate of knots, we were hitting 8 knots and our rev counter was below 2000.

The Needles, looking a lot calmer than earlier in the week.

The sea really was like a mill pond but there was no wind so we knew we would be motor sailing all the way across. Today we would be crossing the tides so I had set a tidal vector. For none sailing friends this means I have to add the tides going one way, then the other and take one away from the other. From this I can take a bearing and say which heading we need to go on. This is not the same heading of where you want to be. The theory is the tides take you one way and then the other and you end up in the right place at the end. That is a very simplified explanation but that's what I did. Part way through the journey the Captain was having doubts about his navigator's calculations but they worked. Imagine how thrilled I was when our friend, fellow sailor, Mick Bond (Fleur of Pendle) facebooked me to say they'd been following our progress and I quote 'excellent tidal planning with great 's' track on your track'. I can't tell you how good I felt about that message as it was the first time I'd done it and was a bit worried.

The only deviation we had to make was near the French coast as there was a prohibited area that we  had to sail round. We did notice another boat go through but we didn't want any angry French Naval types getting cross with us.

Putting up the French courtesy flag. In my defence I had several layers plus my life jacket on. Hence the Michelin man look.

The pilot book did warn us about the strong cross currents as you enter Cherbourg and he wasn't wrong. It was a bit of a struggle to make sure we weren't swept passed the entrance. It's a bit counter intuitive as you can see the entrance and you have to steer away from it not too it. As we went past the last way point in the harbour entrance it was bang on 12 1/2hours so we were quite pleased with the time. Mind you it took us a further hour to get through the outer harbour into the inner and tied up. We seem to be ferry magnets, whenever we enter a harbour there is always a dam big ferry manoeuvring and we need to stay out of its way. In this case it was doing a three point turn before leaving the harbour's western entrance/exit.

We soon located our pontoon and berth and as soon as we were tied up we went to the harbour office to pay. Luckily one of our neighbours helped with the ropes as I have never seen such narrow pontoons in all my life - I wasn't going to risk jumping on to it. Also it was very low down. My handy IKEA step was so useful over the week.

Sailing Information

Pay for 5 nights and get 2 free plus discount for either RYA or CA membership. Total cost for 7 nights was 142 Euros which translated to about £23 a night.

Toilets at the end of pontoon plus facilities in the harbour office. Lovely and clean facilities the only down side was the shower seats were made for very petite French derrieres and not large Yorkshire bottoms.

Laundry also good but as usual not cheap for a double load washer it cost 8 euros. Smaller washers were 4 euros. Driers were 1 euro for ten minutes.

The Carrefour is a good walk, about twenty minutes. Some folk bought their stuff back in the trolleys but we relied on what we could carry in our rucksacks.

Can recommend the Café De Paris for an excellent meal. Reasonably priced set menu, great wine.

More news about Cherbourg later.

A week on the Isle of Wight June 2017

On arrival on the Isle of Wight the weather was terrible, the wind was so bad we had seven fenders down one side of the boat all at different heights as it was being pushed over at different angles. Although at times over the week the wind occasionally improved slightly it was laways there and not suitable in the direction we wanted to go. We made the decision to stay put and make the most of our time on the Isle of Wight. As places go there are worse places to be storm bound than Yarmouth.

The IOW bus service is terrific and we bought a week long bus pass each for £24 per person and hopped on and off buses like a good 'un. Roll on my OAP bus pass, judging on this week I'll make good use of it. We definitely got our £24 worth, on three trips I would have spent £27 and I did use it every day.

First of all Yarmouth is a lovely little town and there is lots to explore there and several walks start from here so we were happy. The buses run every half an hour to Newport, which is the hub of the bus service. The Island Breezer also ran from here, which is an open top bus. There are two other Breezer routes which hadn't started as it was too early in the season. Mind you I doubt we would have time to use them as we were pretty busy.

We also hit the English Heritage Card as there are three English Heritage sites on the Island. I would like to say I also got ours monies worth out of that. Over the year I would have spent more  going into the places I visited than the cost of the yearly pass. You can see I always like to get my moneys worth.

There is loads to see and do on the Isle of Wight.

You can't go to the Isle of Wight without going to Cowes. We really enjoyed wandering round despite it being a bit on the blustery side. The cannon amused me, they are outside the Yacht Club and assume they are for setting off the really 'posh' races.

Osborne House - speaks for it's self but this really is a great day out. I went by myself as John didn't fancy it but I thoroughly enjoyed mooching around. I did the lot house, walk to the beach, Swiss Cottage and Walled garden. This included walks through the woods. Would highly recommend this visit. It took me longer to get home as ot was the beginning of the Isle of Wight festival so there were road closures in place and lots of traffic jams.

Part of the formal garden from an upper floor window.

From the beach looking over to Portsmouth.

Front of the house.

Little shelter on the beach.

Another view of the house.

Carisbrooke Castle
We were both really taken by Carisbrooke Castle, it has been featured on Country file fairly recently and they had the donkey that draw water from the well. In days gone by they had a terrible life but now they only work six minutes a day. Jack, the donkey we saw, actually put himself in the wheel when he knew the lady was coming to the end of her spiel. They are retired at 18 years old and can then live to gone thirty. Super castle, we were there ages exploring. Definitely worth a visit.

We had a walk to Freshwater Bay, stopped halfway for lunch at the Red Lion. THe walk took us to the other side of the Island so we jumped on a bus from there and went to see the needles and the Battery. It was also the test site for some rockets, the actual rockets themselves were launched in Australia. We didn't go in the National Trust bit as they were charging exorbitant prices to go into a tiny bit of space. The photos are brilliant as it was so windy and blustery, it was hard to stand up.

A Grey day round the Needles.

It looked very rough in the Needles Channel, which is where we'd be sailing in a few days.

Looking down to Alum Bay.

The coloured sands in the cliff. It was so windy the cable car wasn't running.

Doing selfies on a camera is not easy. John had definitely lost interest be this point. The previous four included my chin, John's ear and other random bits of our faces.

We managed to go down to Alum Bay on a calmer day. We walked down and took the cable car back up. I found that a bit nerve wracking. Although John is not over keen on heights he's happy with this cable car as it uses the ropes (steel cables to you and me) that he worked with down the pit. So he knows how strong they are.

The Needles on a different day from a different angle. Still a bit rough.

Looking back as we went up in the cable car. John took this as I wasn't moving an inch and eyes forward all the time!

The Different coloured sands.

The amazing coloured sands.

I managed a quick photo while we were going up.

For some reason the pictures above are a bit out of sync as every time I tried to add a caption they jumped to a different position on the page. I decided to leave them in the right place but the wrong order.

Apart from jumping on and off buses we did a lot of walking. We walked from Ventor to Shanklin via the coastal path, it was a bit more up hill and down dale than I thought it would be but a most enjoyable walk. That was finished off with Lobster Bisque at the Fisherman's Cottage which is on the beach. We were running out of time for the bus back as they were only once an hour (Sunday) so we got the elevator to the top of the hill. The ridiculous thing is you can only get a return ticket. We said we weren't coming back this year, the young man assured me as long as I kept the ticket I could us it, even if it was in two years time. I told him that I'd definitely keep it. It's in the back of my phone as I will be wondering where I hid it in two years time.

This has been a brief romp round the Isle of Wight, we really enjoyed ourselves here. There is so much else we did and saw.

Next stop Cherbourg.

Portsmouth to Yarmouth Isle of Wight 4th June 2017

We needed to fill with fuel before leaving Gosport, even though it was self service it was fairly painless. I took a few views as we were leaving Portsmouth. The problem with two handed sailing is when you would like to take photos, you are usually to busy to do it.

View of Spinnaker Tower - I still haven't been up.

It's always busy round Portsmouth. The hovercraft whizzes back and forth from the

Isle of Wight. There are also loads of ferries, the Wight Link and Britany Ferries

The journey to the Isle of Wight was going to be a short one but it was very windy and the wind was on the nose. Unusually for me I felt quite queasy so was not a lot of use. John offered to do the ropes and fenders as we got to Yarmouth but he'd steered all the way so I didn't think that was fair. Although we motor sailed we still had to do a fair bit of tacking.

Osborne House from a distance.

A closer view - I will be visiting via the land.

We knew it would be busy at Yarmouth as it was the Old Gaffers weekend, the harbour was fully booked over the weekend. The harbour staff were very efficient, we had pre-booked a finger pontoon online, they sent a boat out to great us and direct us to our berth. The harbour was jam packed but as we arrived just after 12 it soon emptied as you need to leave your berth by 12 noon on departure day. It was really colourful to motor into as all the Old Gaffers were there all dressed overall.

True to form we did record this on camera straight away as be were busy mooring up but managed to get some photos later. It was also the Yarmouth Festival so it was jammed packed. As soon as we were moored we went for an explore, it was super with loads of different bands, food stalls, craft stalls, Morris and Clog Dancers etc etc.  The food stalls were excellent and so many different nationalities - Spanish, French, German, English, Greek, Turkish and a great noodles bar. (My mal de mere had disappeared as soon as I stepped on terra firma) The noodles were brilliant and the portion so huge we didn't have tea that night.

We were well entertained by a marching concert band that had a wicked sense of humour.

View from the back of Rascal, the harbour had emptied considerably by the time we took this.

Rascal, the youngster, amongst some of the Old Gaffers.

The concert band getting ready, when they performed they even had the masks on. I don't think this will catch on as a new uniform for the Corpus Band!

Ditto for band uniform. I think I look better in our black and white.

We know we will be at Yarmouth for a while as the weather is about to become awful. There are a couple lows coming in and also the tides won't be right for us so the combination of the two means we will stay put for a week. However it's not a bad place to be stuck in or have an extended stay. We intend to make the most of the week and have bought a weeks bus ticket which cost £24 each, having asked the cost of separate journeys I know it is worth it. In three days I know we have used at least £18 worth of journeys - it's actually more but I didn't know the coast of todays trip.  There are also loads of walks round about. So my next blog will be our week on the Isle of Wight.

Sailing Information

From Portsmouth 19.1 miles, 3hours 50 minute - fully moored up. I forgot to look at my watch earlier.

Prices vary depending on what you book - we went for a finger berth. This was £35, if you stay on a Friday or Saturday night add £10.  Electricity is extra (£4) though showers are included, apparently they didn't used to be.

The Harbour office is new, so loads of toilets and showers with lashing of hotwater.

There is a lounge area where there is a news channel on TV, you can recharge phones, ipads, computers etc. I have spied the laundry but haven't found the cost yet as it takes tokens. (£6.40 for a wash and dry but you  will need extra drier tokens to dry you wash -these are £2.40)

There is a supermarket in the village but it is expensive, we went to Morrisons in Newport.