We’d been planning to head towards St. Malo from Treguier with a stop in Saint-Quay-Portrieux, which I spent a night in some dozen years ago during Trouper’s first summer tour. That summer Kathryn and I had been beaten by the weather in our attempts to get to the Scillies but had had a glorious time exploring Falmouth harbour, and had gone out with my family from Fowey, and hove to off Gribbin Head to scatter my father’s ashes in a bit of water he loved sailing. He never saw Trouper – but I’m very confident he’d have approved. Anyway Kathryn and I had left Trouper in Falmouth and a week later I headed down with some work friends. Three of us took Trouper back up to Fowey where we had a day walking a bit of the Cornish coast (and my friends had a swim) before we were met by two more friends that evening. We left Fowey at about 9pm, having to pause on the way out for a firework display in the harbour to finish. We sailed straight to St-Quay-Portrieux before heading on to St Malo where one of the crew left us and another joined us, necessitating a day wandering around town and swimming off the beach, before we headed North to Guernsey, and then on to Portsmouth, and thence home.
Our plan had been to retrace some of those steps and have dinner at a lovely restaurant (a Michelin happy eater…) we found in a subsequent trip with other friends in St Malo, whilst getting our passports stamped there and heading home via the Channel Islands. However, looking at the weather forecasts over the last few days (and the Met Office’s excellent ‘Deep Dive’ YouTube videos that discuss the forecast and models in detail) we’ve had a bit of a rethink. Hurricane Erin rapidly grew into a category 5 storm over last weekend and as its remains track across the north Atlantic as a mid latitude low pressure system it is generating a fair bit if uncertainty about next week’s weather. If nothing else it is clear that it’s likely to deliver some significant swell into the western approaches an on into the channel next week.
We’ve decided to bank the current certainty and relatively calm sea state we have at the moment, so will stay here another night, but then leave for Cherbourg tomorrow (Friday), which will be a long day as we can’t leave very early if we are to catch the fair tide at Guernsey up to Cap del la Hague. We’ll probably get into Cherbourg marina by about 1 am French time. It would make much more navigational sense to go to Guernsey and head home from there, as I did that first year with Trouper, but now we need to visit a Port of Entry to get our passports stamped to leave the EU.
Last night the marina arranged for a local diver to pop round and have a look at Trouper’s propellor. We’d felt a little bit of unusual vibration, which following the weed on the prop the other day we wanted to check out. He was a lovely guy who put two huge (approx 80cm long) fins, mask, snorkel, and a weight belt on over his wetsuit and easily outpaced the quite substantial tide to have a good look. He was quite apologetic that he couldn’t see anything, though he could feel a little movement in the prop shaft. My guess is that the issue the other day has worn the cutlass bearing in the P bracket which supports the prop shaft at the prop. Renewing that is a job for the winter, but not a big deal. I’m pleased to know there’s nothing tangled down there before a long couple of day’s where we’re likely to be motor sailing.
Once in Cherbourg we can easily get the paperwork done, as the French border police visit the marina office a couple of times a day. We might head straight across on Saturday, once the passports are stamped, but that depends on the forecast. At the moment Sunday looks a fair bit less attractive with a headwind, and rougher sea state, though Saturday will be more motor-sailing with little breeze. But we’ll review that plans in Cherbourg, the forecasts are moving about a fair bit at the moment, and whilst we can have good certainty for 36h or so much further out is shifting about a bit.
We’ll probably head back to Poole, which we’ve not been to for some years, and offers an easy all states entrance. Studland bay might be an option on the way in but we’ll have to see how it looks. The current forecast has it looking very welcoming until the small hours of Sunday when 0.8m waves will start rolling in from the South East, leaving the beach as a lee shore, which would make it anything but a restful night.
Inevitably there is paperwork to complete for our UK entry, though the Borders agency introduced quite a good online system a couple of years ago. It has the odd niggle (why will it remember the passport details of anyone I’ve ever entered, but require me to input my contact details as skipper by hand each time?) but it’s actually quite simple to use. Once in Poole we can have an easy week heading back to Chichester. Perhaps a night or two in South Deep in Poole (a favourite of mine), if there’s room on an August Bank Holiday.