Monday, June 06, 2005

close encounter in shipping lane

We have been on a little jaunt across the Channel this week – to Alderney and Cherbourg. We had a lovely flat crossing on the way over but not enough wind. We managed to sail most of the way, but when we found ourselves drifting across the shipping lanes at less than 2 knots, we decided it was time to start the engine. It took us 18 hours in total, our slowest crossing so far.

We spent a relaxing day in Alderney, wandering the misty coast path and window shopping (half day closing to Dave’s delight). We were looking forward to pub grub in the evening but were too shocked by the prices – average meal £12, chips or salad extra!!

We fared better in Cherbourg. We arrived in perfect time to go through the swing bridge into the inner basin where we were delighted to find that it was free to moor.
I had been hankering after some mussels so we tried a ‘lunchtime special’ in one of the waterfront restaurants - for €10 (£6) a head. The mussels were delicious but I was a bit disconcerted to find tiny crabs inside the majority of the shells, sometimes inside the mussels themselves. I’d never encountered this before but the ‘patron’ assured me that it was perfectly normal in this region. Hmmm!

We had plenty of wind for the sail back on Saturday – a good force 6 from the west. With all sails set, including the topsail, we were steaming along at top speeds of 8 knots (with the tide, admittedly). Then, as we were crossing the first shipping lane, there was a big bang and the end five feet of the boom snapped off. We had to haul down the topsail before we could drop the main sail and gather up the flogging bits, including the end of the boom that was threatening to come in through the wheelhouse windows. We motor-sailed the rest of the way back to Torquay.

1 Comments:

Blogger Marc said...

Dont'cha know, Haze, those dinky little crabs are the best bits! ;>)

Great pic from the top of the mast.

Too bad about the boom.

M & K

4:12 PM  

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