End of Day 27 Beaufort NC USA towards Guernsey

 

Dawn breaks…

…and the sun creeps above the horizon Our last night at sea was uneventful except that by midnight the wind had gone fully into the east and the tide had changed to run west so at watch changeover we switched the engine on and started motoring. And as dawn broke we found ourselves chugging along gently across increasingly smooth seas as the wind dropped away further.

A beautiful final morning at sea

Our careful husbanding of fuel meant that, even without the 40 litres we had transferred from the jerrycans the previous day, we had more enough diesel in the main tanks to motor the rest of the passage back to Guernsey, which looked a likely requirement given the weather forecast.

Pleinmont – Guernsey’s southwest tip

The Hanois lighthouse off the southwest of Guernsey

So it was just a case of pointing BV’s bow in the right direction and watching out for other traffic and, of course, our first glimpse of our island home.

The visibility was excellent and so we had a great view of the Hanois lighthouse off Guernsey’s southwest tip and the island’s south coast cliffs.

Enthusiastic welcome committee

As if seeing Guernsey again against beautiful blue skies were not enough, we were also completely spoilt by the arrival of a reception committee of dolphins.  They swam with us for 20 minutes both alongside us and in our bow wave.

Just fabulous!

The southern cliffs of Guernsey

When the dolphins sped off to other, more important, tasks we spent the remainder of our motor along the south coast, feasting our eyes on the cliffs and bays of home.  The morning light picked out the detail of the rocky inlets as we looked directly north but ahead, and into sun, it was all a little hazy.

Approaching St Martin’s Point with views across to Herm and Sark

However, the off-lying islands of Herm and Sark stood out clearly as we approached St Martin’s Point at the southeast tip of the Guernsey.

Rounding St Martin’s Point

Here we turned north and got our first sight of St Peter Port, the main town on the island.

Top: St Martin’s Point with the light at its base standing out clearly. Bottom left: Fermain Bay.  
Bottom right: Looking up the Little Russel towards Town (St Peter Port, the white buildings)
and Castle Cornet (centre of the picture)

As we headed up the coast towards St Peter Port we called Guernsey Coastguard on VHF Ch20, as we had been instructed to do, to announce our arrival.  We confirmed that we were both healthy and still planning to make landfall at Beaucette and gave our ETA so that Guernsey Border Agency staff could be tasked to meet us and brief us on the self-isolation procedures.

Carol-Anne and Richard came out to meet us – but, of course, maintained an appropriate social distance

And just as we finished on the radio, we were met by our second reception committee of the day.  Good friends Carol-Anne and Richard had tracked our progress home and came out to welcome us back to the Bailiwick – nautically socially distanced of course. 

St Peter Port and Castle Cornet off to our port side

It was great to see them and to catch up as best as we could by shouting between the boats.

Carol-Anne and Richard head off towards Herm for the day

Leaving St Peter Port astern

Abeam Castle Cornet, Carol-Anne and Richard disappeared off for their fun day out on the water whilst we continued north towards Blue Velvet’s new home in Beaucette Marina

St Peter Port view as we continued north

Whenever we’ve sailed to Guernsey before, we have always made landfall in St Peter Port.  Today, however, we were only permitted to arrive at Beaucette, a marina we had never even visited before.  So we took the opportunity to enjoy the views around the Little Russell….

Vale Castle, just to the north of Guernsey’s second port, St Sampson’s Harbour

….the whole of Guernsey was almost glowing in the sunshine.  We couldn’t stop thinking how lucky we were to have arrived back on a such a beautiful day.

Island view eastwards from the central Little Russell – Herm (left mid-ground), Brehon Tower (centre left), Sark (right background) and Jethou (right mid-ground) with Crevichon just to the left of Jethou

We weren’t the only people enjoying the beautiful day.  Though the pictures don’t show it, the Little Russell was alive with boats and people out making the most of the fabulous weather, light winds and smooth seas.

Following the approach transit into Beaucette Marine

Guernsey as was with Beaucette Quarry (now the marina) standing out clearly

Beaucette Marina is right at the northeast tip of Guernsey and was originally a granite quarry, one of the several hundred excavated on the island to extract granite for export, notably Diorite as used in the steps to St Paul’s Cathedral.  In 1968/1969 the Royal Engineers were employed to blow a hole in the sea cliff, allowing the quarry to flood and thus be converted to a marina.

Royal Engineers working in the entrance to Beaucette Quarry/Marina

Final approach to the marina entrance

The task of blowing a hole in the sea cliff almost proved too difficult for the Royal Engineers, who started the job in 1968 and had to stop and then return the next year, with even more personnel, to finish off their mission.  The entrance looks, and feels, very narrow, particularly when there is any sea running, but it is actually 15m wide when there’s 3m over the sill.  It might look so narrow because of the dogleg turn to port immediately inside the entrance.  There’s not a huge amount of space to manoeuvre here, so we called up on the radio to make sure that no one was planning to come out as we made our way in.

We were too busy to get any photos as we went through the gap by can report that, yes, it does feel very narrow.  More so when there’s a sea running!

Having been told that we had to self-isolate at home, instead of going to a quarantine berth we were directed to BV’s new mooring.  It too turned out to be very tight to get into but was the only remaining mooring suitable for a 42ft yacht available on the island, so we were very pleased to have been allocated it.

Whilst we waited for a visit from Guernsey Border Agency (GBA) officials we quickly packed up some important bits and pieces to take home with us.  The GBA (Customs and Immigration) officers arrived pretty quickly, processed our arrival – from a distance – and then, with BV closed down, we moved into a room in our house to begin our 14 days of self-isolation.  Fortunately, 2 days later we received a very welcome call telling us that our request for exemption from self-isolation had been approved; 26 full days at sea, as proved by our satellite tracker, was deemed to be more than enough time in ‘self-isolation’.  So, in a bit of a daze, we began adjusting to life on dry land, meeting up with family and friends and starting on the million and one jobs on BV and ashore that needed attention.  

Our trip home had been wonderful conclusion to a fabulous journey.  Yes, it came sooner than we might have hoped and we certainly hope to be able to go off long-distance sailing on BV at some point in the future.  But with so much uncertainty surrounding travel in the face of COVID-19 returning home was exactly the right thing for us.  And the trip home, whilst also not panning out exactly as we had originally envisaged, was very successful both in terms of the time it took, the weather we experienced and the fact that, after 26-odd days at sea, we were still talking to each other and could quite happily have continued on further.  So, in time, we’ll point BV’s bow west again with our eyes on more diving in the Honduran Bay Islands, a summer’s cruising in Newfoundland (or maybe 2 summers?) and, perhaps, a Pacific crossing – we’ve certainly proved we can go that distance!

Passage statistics:

Position at 1000A 24 Jun: N49 30 W003 31 (Beaucette Marina, Guernsey)

Midday to 1000A distance through water: 131 nautical miles (average 6.0 knots).

Midday to 1000A GPS distance towards destination: 127 nautical miles

Midnight to 1000A distance through water: 56 nautical miles (average 5.6 knots)

Midnight to 1000A GPS distance towards destination: 52 nautical miles

Total miles covered through water:  4068 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): Zero nautical miles

End of Day 27 - Guernsey