Off to the Channel Islands

Thursday dawned grey, overcast and calm as we cast off and we were soon enjoying the tidal sleigh ride past the vast nuclear reprocessing plant overlooking the cape.  On journeys like this, where we are just motoring in unpleasant weather, we program the course in to an electronic chart plotter and the GPS, a satellite navigation system, and George, our autopilot, do all the work.

George motored us the whole way from the exit to Cherbourg’s outer harbour past the Cape and down the leading line into Braye harbour on Alderney.  While George does all this work, we can keep watch sheltered from the weather behind the spray hood, occasionally double checking George’s progress by taking bearings from major landmarks en route and cross checking our position against the charts.

Four hours after casting off we were moored to a bright yellow visitor’s buoy in Braye harbour, whose quaint simplicity contrasted dramatically with the countless World War II Nazi defences, built at the cost of vast numbers of Soviet slave labourers.