Yarmouth - Beaucette, Guernsey

We're officially on holiday!  We arrived at Beaucette Marina at 9.30 yesterday evening after our (well my) longest passage ever - 91 miles, 17 hours from Yarmouth.  Setting off at 4.30 am seemed very early, but it was worth it to perfectly time our arrival at the Alderney Race which looks very calm in the picture.  Conditions were good for the crossing - we motored at the start for several hours, then managed an hour with the spinnaker before the wind moved forward and picked up and we were on a beam reach for most of the rest of the passage.  We were also able to receive radio 4 and the English coastguard  all the way across - result!  The shipping channels were quiet - we only saw about although there was a lot of radio traffic, we didn't see many other yachts, however on the approaches to Guernsey we saw a Malo 36 which we took an interest in as my Mum's cousin Phil has one and we always look out for him (but never see him) in the Solent.  Amazingly it was his boat Kaprys - we tried calling on the radio and catching up with them but didn't manage to make contact and they went in to St Peter's Port.  Despite several phonecalls we couldn't contact Beaucette Marina but took a buoy outside to wait for the sill to be passable, the passage between the rocks seemed very narrow but the size of the boats inside suggest that we won't have any trouble!

 On arrival we were greeted by a family who also keep their boat in Portsmouth who helped with our lines and gave us a glass of wine: a lovely welcome after such a long trip.  As usual there were a couple of points where I was wondering why I choose to spend my holiday feeling so rubbish, but after 12 hours sleep, a hot shower and a cup of coffee I'm looking forward to the rest of  the trip.