In the evening we had welcome Eric and Andrea. They will sail with us to Le Havre, where we bring our Bajka into winter storage. The weather promised three beautiful days with 10-15 knots westerly wind.
The next day at 11am there was enough water to leave the marina. With Eric at the wheel, we made use of all the wind shifts during one hour of upwind sailing until we passed the lighthouse “La Corbière” could head towards Guernsey. With the current from the south we came to the island Sark only after 4 hours. There we had to tack twice in order to pass between Guernsey and Herm. Exactly in this passage there was a huge anchored cruise liner we had to pass closely and our kids were pleased.
Marina Beaucette appeared to us more likeable than St. Peter`s Port, so we spontaneously decided to call there, even though we were a bit late. The harbour master told us that the water was less than 2 meters above the sill. Thanks to our lifting keel (0.75 meters draught) we were still let in, but we should hurry up. So: start the engine put the sails down and follow the red and green buoys. Then we came to the narrow entrance between the rocks. We all held our breath and drove swiftly through the narrow “S”.
Just don’t touch left or right and hope to not touch at the bottom. Lukas at the wheel, Ela in the front watching out for unforeseen things, Eric on the hydraulics to control the centreboard and rudder and Andrea taking care of the kids, who were quite calm at this moment. Inside the harbour we put the keel and rudder back down and the harbour master quickly helped us to attach the boat in the right place. Nael summed up the whole as follows: “… and zack in the harbour”.
After the brief excitement we looked at the small marina. The floating pontoon, the marina buildings and everything around was very well taken care of. We want to come back here, that’s for sure. After diner there was time to take a walk in the harbour. In front of the entrance we saw a few boats at the yellow buoys that had not managed to get in on time.
Beaucette Marina Guernsey
In the past there was a quarry where the English got granite for roads. In 1965, the quarry was flooded. Later on, the Royal Engineers and soldiers blasted away parts of the natural cliff wall and made the entrance. At low water the sill dries out 2.2 meters. When approaching you can see the big numbers on the harbour wall showing the water level above the sill.
