Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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@Giles Looked like a great day an crossing.
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said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
Technically, we should be flying a Q flag*, and not leave the boat until we have had permission to do so by the French immigration guys. At St Vaast, the process is performed by the marina staff who then email all the info needed to the immigration office in Cherbourg. But the marina staff will have knocked off for the night (except the lock keeper) when we arrive. So they have told us where to berth and to pop up to see them sometime tomorrow.
The Marina restaurant closes at 21:00, I will be eating there tonight
- The "Q" flag (also known as the Quebec flag or Yellow Jack) is a plain yellow maritime signal flag. In international sailing and shipping, it means: "My vessel is healthy and I request free pratique [free entry] into port." It signals authorities that a boat has arrived from abroad and is requesting an official inspection.
Even better.
The guy in the marina office did not have the foggiest idea on how to process immigrants. So he told us to come back tomorrow, it's great fun being illegal......I actually think we could stay here for the whole 2 weeks and not bother formally entering the country. Needless to say, Paula won't let me do it, she does not want us to be banned from Schengen (one of our good friends has been
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Yeah, sorry. Will try to correct that soon.....
We were taken out to dinner in Barfleur bt our old Haslar Marina neighbour. I have (just) 6 Oysters, followed by Tuna...
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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Tomorrow, we sail around the Cherbourg Peninsular, and through The Alderney Race to Dielette. Some of the trickiest waters in Europe to navigate, it will be a day off Spring Tides, so the currents will be strong, but luckily there should be very little wind to make things even more complicated....
This is current map at about 90 mins into our passage. Red is strong, dark red/black, extremely strong....Going to burn some fuel...
Later in the day, and at last we will have current pushing us....
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Entering The Alderney Race.....
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You are now past the strong currents !
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It is still Spring tides, so large flows for the next couple of days, and we have to be in St Malo for Friday. And there are some pretty treacherous reefs between here and there. So we will do a 20nm run tomorrow to Carteret, which leaves us about 45nm to do to get to St Malo. Winds on Thursday are forecast to be strong, so that leaves us the Carteret-St Malo passage to do on Friday, we'll likely leave Carteret at 04:30ish on Fri to get the best conditions. Carteret is at waypoint 4, St Malo is the waypoint after waypoint 8. It'll be a challenging passage....
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
So we will do a 20nm run tomorrow to Carteret,
No we will not.......
Given the tidal gates to get out of Carteret into St Malo, it's basically an impossible passage to do and not have to punch through heavy currents. So the current plan is to sail from here (Dielette) to St Malo in one hit. We are not behind a gate here, so we can leave with no timing restrictions....
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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Appears that completing essential victuals is conducive to ever shorter runs and longer stops.
