We’re not talking waves but emotions. The trip over from Portsmouth to Cherbourg was calm and went well. We both enjoyed the Champagne sailing with light winds of 8-10 knots on the beam across calm 0.8m rolling seas under the sun and blue sky from midway onwards. Giramonda behaved well with a full Genoa and single reef in the main (being super cautious as we learn her limits) we switched the engines off and carried on cruising at 6 to 8knots over ground and comfortably navigated our way under auto-pilot between the parked cargo ships and shipping lanes.
We left Portsmouth (Gosport Marina) at first light as we wanted to arrive in a new place before dark. The 71 nautical miles at an average of 7 knots was planned to take 10 hours, but as we got closer spotting land ahoy our speed dropped to 4.5 knots and the remaining 12 miles seemed to take hours to reduce to 5 miles and the entrance to the harbour took even longer as we stated to become concerned for Zibbi. She had enjoyed the trip, but has not yet learnt to do her business on the boat, so as the 10 hours became 12, then 13 and we still had not arrived we worried for her. It felt cruel, but she has her piddle fake grass mat on the boat but has not yet learnt how to use it.
To make matters worse when we finally pulled into the marina at 7.30pm local time there was no marina welcoming staff. With the wind direction we pulled up safely on the waiting pontoon which is not connected to land and as the sun dropped us into darkness we launched our tender to go find a nearby park with trees and grass. Success, a happy rested pooch.
The next day we wanted to move off the waiting pontoon but the winds continued to make this manoeuvre tricky so we continued to get used to the dinghy. Zibbi now associates the dinghy with park walks and to our surprise enjoys the dinghy, throwing herself in from the pontoon! On day two the dinghy engine started misfiring slightly, and as the fuel gauge does not work I topped up the tank to be sure not to run out of fuel. The misfiring got worse over the coarse of the next few runs until I went to the chandlery on my own and it cut out completely just as I approached the pontoon.
Long story short, we use red fuel canisters for petrol, and black for diesel (no yellow ones were available in the UK). And I had loaded the dinghy with two identical red fuel canisters. However, it turns out that one contained diesel. I had refilled the empty ones while in Portsmouth with petrol, but we had inherited a red canister with diesel from the previous owner. FFS! Who puts diesel in a red canister, and why didn’t I notice the wrong smell! A very helpful mechanic at the chandlery took pity on my desperate situation; I could not return to our boat nor ferry Zibbi to the park anymore, so he drained the tank and flushed the fuel system so that the fresh petrol made its way through and the engine runs like a dream again. I could have done this myself, but all the tools I needed were on the boat.
So we are now exploring Cherbourg, we’ve been to the port border police, they turned us away as we have valid visas for six months, no need for a stamp. And the port office says we do not need to present our boat papers to customs, however, I will make a special trip to the customs office today to be 100% sure this is correct.
Our next stop is St Malo, but this is 90nm away, through The Alderney Race, which requires timing to enter at slack tide (at High Water Dover, that’s 13:54 local time) and get carried through all the way, but we think we will need to stop over at St Helier in Jersey for a night to break up the trip and navigate into St Malo in daylight the next day. The below images show the wind, tidal current and wave heights for tomorrow: looking good. Calm winds tide turns at high water dover (2pm) and waves are a modest 0.8m, so we leave Cherbourg between 10 and 11am to get 2 miles NW off Cap de la Hague at HW Dover as per the Almanac instructions for a smooth passage.