Single Handed Back to Devon

Unusually, Victoria Marina provides a good WiFi internet connection. So, over the next few days, I spent a lot of time studying weather sites on the web. One of the best ones that I have found is: http://www.passageweather.com/ which supplies predictions of the likely wind and waves to expect during the following few days. It indicated that Friday morning should give me a suitable weather window to get back to Devon. However, to get the tides right through Little Russel, I would have to leave at 6:00 am. The sill at Victoria Marina was only open around midday so I left the comfort of the marina on Thursday ready for an early start on Friday. Handling Jomima on my own (38 feet long and 10 tons) required a lot of planning to make sure that, in particular, I could safely leave a mooring and then arrive at the new pontoon with fenders, ropes etc ready for mooring up as required. I again checked the weather, before turning in for the night, and it seemed as though it should be ok.

I got up at 05:00, cast off at 06:00, and before I left the harbour stowed all of the ropes and fenders. Little Russel was quiet and a one metre swell made its presence felt as I headed across the Channel. Fortunately the autopilot was able to keep to the course that I had programmed in advance, despite the swell. I passed the mid Channel light Vessel and crossed the two large shipping lanes without too many problems. The swell then began to subside as the tide changed and I began to relax and enjoy the 75 mile journey. The conditions allowed me to average 15-16 knots and the English coast appeared as a smudge on the horizon at 09:30. At 11:00 I entered Brixham harbour and, using the VHF radio, asked them for a mooring and checked which side I would have to place the fenders. I then put the engines into neutral and drifted while I set up ropes and fenders. Fortunately the mooring was quite narrow, and there was little wind, so that once I had got Jomima into the mooring she did not drift away while I attached ropes to the pontoon. It was a great relief to get back safely before the weather changed that afternoon.

Dartmouth to Guernsey

The fridge arrived on Thursday – damaged. The replacement arrived late Friday and I managed to fit it that afternoon. Adjusting the door so that the hinges were on the left took longer than actually fitting the fridge in place. As soon as I was able to confirm that we had cold storage again, Ann visited Sainsbury’s and stocked up.

The weather forecast for Saturday was for fine weather, little wind, some mist and calm seas. We decided to head for Guernsey and left our berth in Dartmouth at 10:30 am. The course was SE for 75 nautical miles. I had deliberately plotted a route that took us near the Channel Light Vessel (CLV). It is reassuring, when all you can see is sea, to be able to view the CLV fixed in the middle of the Channel – just to confirm that you are actually on course. With the radar on we crossed the end of the first section of traffic lanes and several large ships passed us by, through the mist, with visibility at about 2 miles. The CLV appeared through the mist and we began to realise that the mist had turned to fog. We now had to cross the second traffic lane with visibility at about 75 yards. At this point you realise that the money you have spent on expensive radar and a chart plotter was a good investment, because that is what you have to trust your life to under these conditions. We were 30 miles from Guernsey. Ann watched the radar and warned me when any of the very large and fast ships approached from the west. I steered by means of the compass and chart plotter, kept my eyes and ears open for other shipping and my hands on the throttles. All around us was complete whiteness. There was no horizon or anything to steer by. It is amazing how much you miss the sun and clouds which, without thinking about it, reassure you that you are on a steady course.

This situation lasted for a very long hour. After we cleared the traffic lanes we were less likely to be mown down by a ship considerably larger than us. Eventually the mist cleared and we could see land on the radar. Once we spotted the NE corner of Guernsey we were able to relax a bit. Then, after carefully navigating the channel into St. Peter Port harbour, we were able to tie up to a pontoon and have a well earned break to wait for the tide to come in so that we could enter the harbour.