Braye Harbour Alderney

 All went well with Nicky’s father’s operation and so on Sunday 24 July we loaded BV up with lots of victuals and moved back on board.  The weather wasn’t being particularly helpful with light wind forecast for the afternoon followed by stronger westerly winds with gusts of 30 knots overnight.  Our original plan had been to head directly towards Falmouth or, ideally, the Isles of Scilly to position us for sailing up the Irish Sea towards Scotland.  Strong westerly winds wouldn’t help with that plan but we were keen to get going so we decided that we’d use the initial light winds to get going roughly towards Plymouth and then overnight, when the strong winds kicked in, we’d bear away to have a more comfortable sail ending up at Dartmouth.

Heading out from St Peter Port

The winds did not play as forecast.  We moved from the QEII marina into St Peter Port to refuel which took an age as they only had one diesel pump working and a long queue of yachts waiting.  Finally, an hour later, at 1500hrs we started heading north up the Little Russel.  The islands of Herm, Jethou and Sark looked beautiful in the sunshine but there was barely a breath of wind.

Brehon Fort with Herm to the left, Jethou to the right and Sark in the distance

We continued on hoping that the forecast light wind would show itself once we got north of Guernsey.  It did for a short time and we got 40 minutes of sailing but it was so light that the tide was sweeping us east faster than we wanted.  If the 30 knot winds came as advertised, we’d have a really hard beat to make Dartmouth rather than our hoped for reach.  Recognising that, ultimately, we were trying to get west towards Land’s End we had 2 choices: head back to Guernsey or accept a bit of easterly and move on to Alderney until the wind became more favourable in a few days’ time.

Anchored in Braye Harbour, Alderney

Alderney became the new immediate destination, and we arrived in Braye Harbour 2½ hours later at 1900hrs.  The anchoring area had lots of free space, so we elected to stay there and have a slightly different view from our last visit 4 days previously.

As the sun set, we studied the weather forecast.  We’d be in Alderney for at least 2 days due to strong westerlies, there would then be a period of 3 knot winds from the north clocking around to the southeast and then the wind would pick up from the southwest.  We wanted to catch those southwesterly winds to head up the Irish Sea towards Scotland.  However, for the next 2 days we’d be going nowhere, so it was time to enjoy some more of Alderney’s charms.

The forge at the 200-year-old watermill

For some unknown reason, neither of us was any good at taking photos on Monday 25 July.  We walked around Crabby Bay, past Doyle’s Battery and up past Fort Tourgis.  There we turned east to pick up a track along the Bonne Terre valley.  However, before we took that path we made a small excursion back northward to take a look at the watermill site.  There has been a watermill there since the 14^th century but the building we saw was a little over 200 years old.  It is being restored by the Alderney Society and we spent a long time talking to a couple who were working on demolishing a tumbledown dry stone wall and rebuilding the wooden gutter that would feed the stream water onto the top of the 5m high waterwheel.  On our way out they suggested that we had a go at pumping the bellows in the mill’s forge, another area that had recently been restored.  It was fascinating to hear what they had achieved so far and where the project was going.  Well worth the diversion from our planned track.

Pretty lanes in St Anne

The rest our route took us up the stream that fed the watermill, past the St Vignalis Garden (St Vignalis first brought Christianity to Alderney) and the into the pretty lanes at the western side of St Anne.  A stroll down the hill took us back to the inner harbour where we had left our dinghy. A nice circuit.

France clearly visible, the Alderney race running quickly westward, and Fort Raz at low water (R)

Tuesday 26 July saw us out and about again with our hiking shoes on, this time exploring the eastern end of the island.

German WWII Naval Range Finding position Marinepeilstand 3 – ‘The Odeon’

We’d come east to visit the 1943 German WWII multi-level naval direction finding tower known locally as ‘The Odeon’.

Looking out to the northeast from inside the Odeon

This unique building was part of Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’ designed to prevent the Allies from invading Europe. German Naval observers would spot any approaching allied ships and coordinate accurate artillery fire to sink them.  However, advances in radar and optical range finders meant that the other 5 triangulating towers were never built on the island, so this tower was instead used by the Lufwaffe as an anti-aircraft command post.  Recently restored, the building and presentations gave an insight into the immense defensive building work constructed on the island during WWII and, more chilling, the prisoner manpower used to achieve that and who were housed in concentration camps on the island.  A dark side to Alderney’s history.

Fort Corblets (R) and Château à L’Etoc (L) either side of Corblets B­­­­­­ay

Corblets Bay

From the Odeon we walked along the beautiful Corblets Bay beach stopping at the camp site café for lunch.

From the campsite, the logical path to take was around the coast and up to Fort Albert.

The climb gave fabulous views back where we had come from….

…. and once around the western side of Fort Albert, down into Braye Harbour.

We had been totally spoilt by the weather and had enjoyed 2 great days out exploring Alderney, but along the way we had decided upon a plan to depart in the morning and see if we could get out towards Lands End before the wind built from the southwest.

Braye Harbour, Alderney