Guernsey

Just off the West coast of Normandy there are some good size islands (the Channel Islands) that somehow became British possessions (some back and forth between the Brits and the French, with a temporary German intercession in WII).

We sailed from St Malo to Guersney, where we've spent 2 days plotting our assault on the English Channel.

Very interesting place, again with a marina right in the heart of a town.

Took a bus tour, no pictures as I've misplaced the memory card.

Arrival and departure occur twice a day, governed by when you can get over the 4.4 meter sill.

Currently that window is 3 hours. Boats raft up outside the sill awaiting direction from the harbor master (who runs around in a dinghy) and the outbound boats break out of their rafts (typically the inside boats are the ones leaving...which involves all kinds of trickery).

Last night a boat got stuck on the sill (on a rising tide) and provided a bit of entertainment for everyone for about 10 minutes as he worked to extricate himself. He ended up backing out and giving it a bit of a wait before he made his 2nd try!

We're planning on leaving on the noon tide for the channel crossing, the ideal time to do that would have been at daybreak, which (of course) is dead low tide...instead our departure will be at 12:45 pm.

Which means we will be sailing in one of the trickiest places in the world at night (for the last part).

Ideally we would have sailed to Alderny (just North of here) and left the next morning for a daylight crossing, but (as luck would have it) there is a low that is approaching and we had to rule out that option.

Note: Free WiFi!!!...wasted several hours on that getting an entirely new and novel messages saying I was logged in too many times (same old, same old but always with a new twist)!

Off to the free WiFi spot at the tourist center, which (of course) has no place to sit down or plug the laptop into.