The Plan (Part 2)

At first sight I wasn’t too enamoured of The Boat, a Jeanneau Melody. The hull was a bit grubby, the teak decking had seen better days, and the rigging looked a bit tired. I caught site of a man sitting in the cockpit, who had the look of someone who felt his eyes were a bit too large for his head.
“Are you The Skipper?” I asked
“I’m one of them”
“I’m The Skipper you’re looking for” said a voice from down below and out into the sunshine stepped a tall, ramrod straight man in his fifties with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. The Skipper was an ex-Coldstream Guardsmen with more sailing mileage in his log than all the cars I’ve ever owned had miles on the clock. We exchanged pleasantries while The Skipper no. 2 (who turned out to be the delivery crew – The Boat’s home port is Southampton), held his head and moaned ever so gently. The Skipper grinned hugely
“We got in yesterday evening and went out for a couple of beers”
The Skipper no. 2 looked up, almost with contempt
“Whatever you do, don’t ever go out with this man for ‘a couple of beers’.
At about this time The Shipmates hauled up to the boat and we began another round of pleasantry exchanging,.

Time and tide wait for no man or Comp Crew/Day Skipper candidate and so The Skipper no. 2 reluctantly made his way for the ferry back to Portsmouth, and we got our gear stowed.

Down below, The Boat still failed to impress. Everything looked well used but at least it was clean and tidy, and the plaques on the bulkhead commemorating participation in three Fastnet races in the early 90s were reassuring. Mrs SteerRollDash and I were allocated the forward cabin and went to make our selves familiar with what was to be our home for the next week.

After stowing our gear The Skipper got us to talk about our sailing experience and goals. To my surprise he didn’t pooh-pooh my stated intention of one day sailing single handed across the Atlantic, but instead seemed enthusiastic about it. It was my first experience of his ‘go for it’ attitude, which I later would find tempered by a cast iron commitment to getting the basics right and an uncompromising attitude to the practise of good seamanship.

I used to use the term ‘steep learning curve’ freely once upon a time, but after those first few days entering and leaving ports and trying to put the theory I’d learnt on a flat, spacious, not pitching or rolling table at night school into practice together with learning about how to handle a boat, I’m now a bit more circumspect about the phrase. I also learned that although The Boat might not be pristine she was dry and functional.

Although there wasn’t much of a sea, Mrs SteerRollDash, after an encouraging start, began to feel queasy especially down below and by the end of the first day felt decidedly sea sick. Our first night in Alderney didn’t help as there was a slight swell in Braye harbour which meant there was no respite for Mrs SteerRollDash even when we stopped. A brief run ashore did pick her up a bit and she managed to pass the night comfortably.
Mrs SteerRollDash started to feel better over the next few days but never escaped the queasiness while underway.

I didn’t really know what to expect from The Channel Islands. My mental picture was constructed with the help of World War 2 television dramas and some anecdotes from people I know who had been there. I wasn’t prepared for the parade of absolute delight that unfolded over that week.

After an overnight stay in Alderney we made our way on to St Peter Port. Confronted by the huge number of boats waiting to get into Victoria Marina, I was sure that we would end up tied up outside, but (in no time at all it seemed) the Harbour Master Staff had us all rafted up safely inside safely and good humouredly. Even four deep on both sides of the visitors pontoons, there was no problems with power or water supplies.

It was here I had my first experience of the warm camaraderie of sailors. Fore and aft and next to us we had Dutch, Germans, Belgians and other Brits. Within a few minutes of rafting up details about homeports were exchanged together with snippets of information about the weather. One Dutch Beneteau owner found out from a British Beneteau owner where he could get a replacement part for his rigging in Poole, the Dutchman’s next port of call.

After freshening up, The Skipper went exploring in St Peter Port and we set foot on shores once again dominated by the motor car, but soon found a decent pub to hide from them, The Albion, which is also the closest to the marina had a great range of real ales and we settled down to a pleasant evening. When The Skipper strolled in and joined us a little later and we chatted about our experiences of the previous few days, I noticed a subtle change taking place. Any veteran of residential courses knows that feeling when the barriers have been broken down and the delegates begin to gel. This was different however. The very real stresses and strains of navigating a boat through (for us) some challenging circumstances had started to turn us into something else – we were becoming a crew.

Just when I thought I was getting the hang of the Channel Islands, our next stop completely exceeded my expectations. The spectacular majesty of Havre Gosselin at Sark begins to look imposing from even a mile out, but picking up a mooring with the sound echoing from the rocks around is just awesome. As we moored I noticed several inflatables dangling 30 feet above the water by their mooring ropes and enquired why they were tied up like that.
“When the owners got out of them” said The Skipper “They were still floating”. I began to realise just what ‘some of the biggest tidal ranges in the world’ actually meant.

We spent a glorious day at Sark, which culminated in an arduous, but worthwhile slog up the cliff path to see The Boat and the other moored boats on a sparkling sea framed by the hard, high brown rocks of the cliffs. Sark itself was so quiet – even quieter than Alderney, which I would not have believed possible two days earlier. We settled down for a drink in one of the two pubs when, with amazing speed (by my city boy standards), the fog rolled in. The journey back to The Boat was, well, downright scary (mental note – one small torch is not enough to get two people down a steep path in the dark and fog). However, the pull back to The Boat in the inflatable made it all worthwhile. Each pull of the oar made the water surface explode into blue and white sparks – my first encounter with phosphorescence. Back on board I spent several minutes with the boathook tracing fiery patterns in the water, like the bonfire night sparklers when I was a boy. That night the sea was only very slight, and I was rocked slowly and gently to sleep. It was surely one of the best ends to one of the best days of my life.

The next stop was St. Helier in Jersey. I didn’t like St. Helier at all. The entry to the harbour and the rafting process was not nearly as well managed as St. Peter Port, with a very officious man barking orders at yachts as they came up to the visitor’s berth. His approach to dealing with questions thrown up by the various language barriers was typically British – he just shouted the last instruction even louder. The bad temperedness rubbed off on some of the visitors, and for the first time we saw disputes and arguments on the pontoons, mostly over the inadequate onshore power facilities.

The town of St Helier itself was too much like the towns I am used to. There were cars racing around with little regard for pedestrians, little groups of teenagers congregating in any place that offered an unspoilt view of other little groups of teenagers. I wasn’t sorry that we planned to be out the next morning.

As we made our way toward the harbour entrance, the wind picked up even more. The Skipper grinned.
“The harbour master’s going to love me for this. Turn the engine off, we’re going to sail out”
We got plenty of tacking practice over the next 25 minutes as we beat up to the harbour entrance, sometimes missing the walls by a matter of a few feet. As our last tack took us cleanly out of the harbour entrance there were one or two approving nods from some of the spectators who had been watching us. I put on my salty sea dog face.

I had been given the job of passage planning for the whole day and thankfully managed to find my way along the south of Jersey, turning northwards through Les Arquettes without incident. Our next port was Cartaret but we couldn’t get across the sill before 10 pm, so we had decided to stop at Les Ecrehou for dinner. As we approached to what amounts to a collection of rocks with the odd house built on, the clouds that had dogged us during the day lifted and this delightful place was shown to its best advantage, with golden, sandy beaches as smooth as a supermodel’s bum, almost Caribbean in appearance. However, we had arrived at just on low tide and, one by one, the jagged rocks disappeared with the flood, leaving just a few to penetrate the surface. We realised just why it is that this place is recommended as being treated with caution.

As we set off for Cartaret, within an hour the wind had dropped again. As we reluctantly turned the engine on, the last of the sun dropped below the horizon and almost simultaneously fog dropped on top of The Boat. My passage plan was now largely redundant but with use of the depth sounder, radar and GPS we hit Cartaret on the nose. By the time we had found a place in the marina and tidied the boat it was gone 11 and we were all gasping for a drink.

The yacht club at Barneville-Cartaret is a modern construction, with a large bar built on top of the usual amenities. As The Skipper sprinted up the steps, Bernadette, the proprietor was about to shut the door.
“I’m sorry, we are closing!”

“But we’re dying for a drink!” said The Skipper. Bernadette looked us over.
“Well, I’m not a doctor, so you’d better come in for a pint” Bernadette had lived in the UK and her English was faultless. She kept the bar open for us for another two hours and laughed and chatted with us. There was a decidedly different feel to our conversation now. The experience in the fog, although not seriously dangerous was anxious enough to change our perceptions of life afloat, and working together to ensure each other’s safety had worked a subtle change. Mike especially had come out of himself a bit and was animated and articulated about the day’s passage. Now we definitely were a crew and conversation about home and mortgages, work and children had changed to boats and harbours, weather and wind and the next port of call.

As the tide to get out of the marina wouldn’t be right until late in the evening, we spent the whole of the next day in Cartaret. Our first port of call was the café on the old quayside. We ordered drinks and The Skipper joined us for a coffee. The Skipper told us about how he got into sailing and shared some anecdotes from his huge experience, some of which had us laughing until our jaws ached.

The weather was fine and we explored this small town looking for provisions and other supplies, which was difficult for me, as I had twisted my knee and although it was easy enough moving around the boat, any distance walking was decidedly painful. However, I felt I owed it to Mrs SteerRollDash to go ashore for a bit.

For the most part the French were very welcoming, but the attitude of some of the shopkeepers was a bit disappointing. We seemed to be almost an intrusion on their social lives. The French custom of closing for 2 hours for lunch seems odd to us, used to the 24-hour city life. However, as we got more experience of the French attitude to food and eating (the market at Cherbourg on Saturday was a food lover’s delight) we became huge converts.

That evening saw us out of Cartaret night sailing for Dielette. The wind had just about got up enough for us to motor sail and for a brief period was strong enough to enable us to turn that damned engine off. The sound of just the wind and the water and the constant look out for lights to navigate by was yet another new experience. Dielette, however, was disappointing to say the least. We arrived at dark into a gloomy concrete basin surrounded by hills. Light didn’t improve the prospect any. The hills had very few relieving features and the concrete looked even more grey and uninviting. The marina complex was being re-developed and, although they had made efforts to make it look pretty, the facilities were poor. There was a steady stream of disaffected people coming out of the shower block, grumbling, soon to be followed by me and Mrs SteerRollDash. The coin machine controlling the shower only accepted the sum of €2.37 a really stupid amount as the machine didn’t give change and therefore required at least 5 different coins to operate it. The showers themselves were smelly and there was litter on the floor.

We weren’t sorry to leave Diellette, even though the next port of call was the return to Cherbourg.

For almost the first time that week the wind blew a steady F4 and we hitched a ride on the Alderney Race around to Cherbourg, an exhilarating sail which left me desperate for more. Thankfully the Stugeron was doing its stuff and even Mrs SteerRollDash enjoyed the fine days sailing. We found a berth in the marina quickly and made plans to go out that evening for our last meal together.

Its incredible to me, used to takeaways, pizza and chip shops that even the yacht club at Cherbourg took food seriously. There wasn’t any compromise on quality as far as I could see and the meal I had was comparable to the best dinner’s I’d eaten locally at home, for about two thirds the price.

The week came to an end on the terrace bar of the Yacht club, the sun sinking low and the beers sinking lower. We said goodbye to The Shipmates, and then Mrs SteerRollDash and I toddled off to catch the ferry home.