49:27.35N 02:32.08W We’ve enjoyed Breton cider and crepes but it’s time to move on again so it’s au revoir to Brittany and hello to the Channel Islands.  It’s a calm clear morning as we thread our way back out of the rocky channel past all the cardinal buoys, including the oddly named east cardinal ‘Petit Pot de Beurre’, and out to sea.  We’ve 103NM to cover in an overnighter and we need to time our arrival so there’s enough water over the sill to enter the marina.  We’re into big tidal streams now and Mira’s in a rush too as we close haul/close reach our way across, so we end up 15 miles off the Guernsey coast at midnight knowing we can’t enter until morning.  We decide to hold station offshore for a few hours and I hate it – it’s pitch black and there’s no horizon and no sky, just a black wall all around us, it’s eerie.

I’m so grateful when the sky finally lightens and we can make our way along the coast onto the waiting pontoon, lowering the French courtesy flag and raising the Q flag ready for Customs clearance as Guernsey is not in the EU.  I feel I’ve been thrown into some alien environment when we’re inside and I step ashore – I’m an hour ahead, nearly run over by the traffic driving on the left and Gordon has to remind me I can’t use euros to buy bread.  Help, I don’t know how to operate in this place!