Off to France

After two weeks in Weymouth (and much merriment at Finns pub - recommended to all), we decided it was time to set sail across the channel. Once again, our faithful crew, Claire, came along to help us.

On Saturday we de-camped to Portland Marina so that we could get an early start on Sunday. A fine, new, marina which has been built to host the sailing bit of the 2012 Olympics. Let's hope they build some shops before that happens.

It was also a jolly long walk to the Gents.

At 5am we were rudely awakened by the alarm clock and after a cup of tea, set off on a course of 150 degrees, bound for Cherbourg. All was going well until the skipper failed to notice a lobster pot marker until the very last moment and wrongly decided to try and pass it on the uptide side. We stopped. We couldn't use the engine to try and free ourselves, for fear of getting the rope wrapped around the propeller but fortunately with a bit of backwards and sideways sailing finally managed to free ourselves. Claire slept through all of this. But then she woke up and demanded breakfast.

After what seemed like a lifetime, but was in fact only 14 hours, Claire reminded the Skipper that, as we were finally in French waters, we should hoist the courtesy ensign. 

The Galley Slave was allowed off duty just long enough to get the mainsail down in the dying embers of sunlight:

and after 15 hours, we finally arrived in Cherbourg.

Encore une fois, en France.