Channel Cruise: Part 3 - St Peter Port to Braye Harbour

We didn't need to leave St Peter Port until after lunch, so we took the opportunity to do some victualling and in my case walk up to the museum.

St Peter Port Harbour with Herm across the water as seen from park

We set off having topped up the fuel tank and bought some more cooking gas and headed off back up the Little Russel.  The first part of the passage was fairly uneventful.  It was a slightly hazy day and we eventually sighted Alderney and the Casquests (the rocky islands to the west).  There was a real Atlantic swell rolling in from the west... big but very gentle waves, the remnant of some storm thousands of miles away.  Toucando rolled from side to side... all the crockery rattled as we went first one way then the other, and anything left loose  flew from side to side.

We had decided to approach via the Swinge - the stretch of water between Alderney and Burhou.

Alderney with Burhou in the top left and the Swinge in between

The Swinge is one of those places with a fearsome reputation, which proved well deserved.  We had been sailing, but took our sails down having conferred with Four Seasons over the VHF.  They said that it was "exciting".  We were certainly going fast with the help of the tide.  Ahead we could see a line of white breaking waves between the tip of Burhou and somewhere south of Braye Harbour entrance.  I took the tiller, and steered straight towards the wall of water: I wanted us to go into this head on.  Suddenly we were in a violent and confused sea, with standing waves, whirlpools and the rest.  It would not have surprised me to see the tentacles of a kraken reach out and curl round the mast.  We pitched back and forth, burying the bowsprit in the waves ahead, the stern sometimes coming clean out of the water and the tiller feeling light as there was nothing but air to steer by.  Each wave came very quickly after the other.  Our speed through the water was next to nothing, but over the grounds we were doing six or seven knots.  We were being hurled through the Swinge with the tide behind us.  Toucando shook and quivered with every wave.  It would have made a good video, but none of us were ready to do that.  Colin kept a watch on the chart plotter assuring me that there was plenty of sea room ahead.  I'm not sure how long it took... maybe a quarter, perhaps half and hour, but evenutually we were through it and out the other side not too far from the entrance to Braye Harbour.

It may or may not have looked like this

We turned into the harbour and started looking for a mooring buoy in the dusk.  Eventually we found one near the main harbour and secured Toucando before having a restorative beef goulash.  I had a can of Tanglefoot, my first alcohol in a year (not counting a very nice sherry trifle at Christmas). It had been an interesting day.

Toucando moored in Braye Harbour

In the morning we caught the water taxi ashore and walked up to St Anne's, the only town on Alderney. Although the population of the island is tiny, just over 2,000, it does feel like a little town, with a high street lined with granite houses, plenty of pubs, and shops which meet the island's needs as well as the whims of tourists.

Street scene in St Anne's, Alderney

We went our separate ways.  I wandered south past Crabby and various forts along the rocky coast line, looking out at the Swinge.  The tide was running in the opposite direction.  The confused water was in a different place, and I watched with interest a yacht try to make its way through against it.... very slowly indeed.

Alderney view... with fort and the Swinge overfalls clearly visible between the island and Burhou

I took a look around the museum in the afternoon, which had some interesting displays about island life, including the evacuation during the second world war, before doing another loop of walk north of Braye to yet more forts.

The whole Southampton Sailing Club party gathered together at the Braye Sailing Club before going to the renowned Chippy just by the old harbour.  It deserved its reputation: it was packed out.  I enjoyed haddock and chips with home made tartare sauce.  We exchanged stories about our experiences getting to Alderney... most of which focussed on the terrors of the Swinge.

Alderney Chippy