We raised our anchor at first light from the bird sanctuary at Ile de Bono and headed northeast to the Channel Islands. Au revoir, France! We hope our paths cross again some day! Before this summer, I had only a vague understanding of the Channel Islands – their geography and their history. I knew they were somehow connected to the UK, and that their residents endured much hardship during WWII, but only because I had seen the now famous movie “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”. Sure, you can learn little tidbits of history from Hollywood, but we were very excited to see the Channel Islands with our own eyes and learn firsthand about their people and their culture.
Winds were forecasted to come out of the northwest for our 60 mile run, a distance that would make for a full day, but even more so, we were especially eager to get going at first light to time our arrival in Jersey before the marina at St Helier closed. The marina was the type that had a sill that held water inside the marina, but required you to arrive at high enough tide to cross over the sill with sufficient depth for your keel. St Helier has about an 8 meter tide range, which allowed the marina to keep the sill open from about 2 hours either side of high tide. If we missed our window, we might have to wait for up to 8 hours before we could try again, putting our entry in the middle of the night, an unpleasant prospect any way you look at it.
