17 July 2010; St. Peter Port, Guernsey.

When I arrived on the bridge at 5 am. for the approach, things did not look too bad. The swell and the wind were under an angle, South West to West and that gave high hopes for a good day. Also the pilot boat made favourable noises and thus we happily proceeded in the direction of the pilot station. By 6 am the pilot was onboard and he was more concerned about a big yacht having pinched the best anchorage than about issues with safe tendering. Indeed the yacht was in the wrong position but somebody from port control had approved its location and when called, the owner or one of his crew informed us that they were not planning to sail until after breakfast. The yacht had a length of about 300 feet, so I could not really anchor on top of it as it had a certain swinging radius. Thus I was forced to drop anchor nearly a mile away from the port entrance and started lowering the tenders. However I made arrangements with the pilot to shift anchor as soon as “breakfast” would be finished.

Five minutes later, the pilot was back again to excitedly announce that they would now be sailing “before breakfast” and did I want to move now. Yes I did. The engineers were quick with getting the engines on line and 10 minutes later we were heaving anchor again. In the mean time the tender service was continuing as I was only moving with a speed on 2 knots and that is something you do not notice when a tender is alongside. A ship swinging behind its anchor makes more movement when yawning on wind and current than a gently handled ship that is being nudged through the water to another location. The way it works in Guernsey, is that the pilot boat goes to the preferred anchorage, the pilot communicates exactly how he wants to have the pilot boat on location and the ships captain moves his ship towards it. In front of St Peter Port there is a strong current running and at spring tides it can be up to four knots. Thus the approach to the pilot boat (who has to work very hard to stay in position in that current) is a combination of moving forward and sideways drifting with the end result that the anchor appears above the boat at its location.

Today the combination of current and wind was great; they balanced each other out and the Prinsendam simply stayed in the same position. It did not move, it did not swing, the wind pushed against the funnel and the current against hull and the ship just sat there. I could not exactly believe that so I checked the echo sounder twice, but with an 100 feet under the keel, we were absolutely not aground. All the more reason to be happy, it created a perfect starboard lee for the tender operation.

Another peculiar thing with St. Peter Port is that they work with traffic lights. If there is larger traffic going in or coming out of the port, basically anything bigger , than a regular size yacht, traffic lights located under the Port Control Tower, go from red to green or vice versa and incoming or outgoing ships have to wait. Today there was a lot of ferry traffic (Saturday in the summer season and thus change over day) and so we could observe regular traffic jams under the red light while something big moved in and out of the port. It is all very well regulated and if the weather is good, St Peter Port is a very nice place to call at. It is also tax free and that meant that bargains are available. The ship had stayed on ships time this time, one hour later than ashore, as I thought it was a bit of a nuisance to go one hour back before arrival and then one hour forward again this evening. For the tours etc. it did not make a difference and the ship still spends the same amount of time in port.

It is only a short distance to Le Havre and that gave me the chance to do a bit of sightseeing. Normally ships have to race away to the next port and then you always keep Sark on the Starboard side when going North. This time I sailed all the way around it, keeping it to the port so we could see the island from the other side. Lush green hills, interspersed with the occasional farm and a few relics from the Napoleontic days and the 2nd World war.

Early tomorrow morning we are in Le Havre for two days. The weather looks even better than today and the temperatures are not expected to go that high and thus things are looking very good.