We spent two nights in Newtown creek actually taking a mooring rather than anchoring as it was the weekend when the whole place fills with boats anchoring and many having problems with getting too close to each other.
We left on Sunday at 08:30 and bucked the tide to the Needles before heading off South towards Alderney. Despite the wind forecast being favourable there just wasn’t any for most of the passage so we motored. The wind increased as we approached the island and we arrived just as it was getting dark.
First we tried to anchor but in the pitch black eventually borrowed a mooring until the following morning when we went out on anchor.
This island is really special. I just wish the same could be said for the harbour. We have visited in good conditions but as usual this time the swell is creeping in and making all the visiting boats rock and roll. Mo says the harbour is yachtsmans ‘hell’.
We have deployed our ‘flopper stopper’. Not a bra but a device hung over the side of the boat to help stop the rolling. It is working but the anchorage is so bad we will leave as soon as possible.
The anchorage has a sea wall built in Napoleonic times but never completed as the Napoleonic wars ended and the harbour was no longer needed by the navy. Great shame as a full wall would probably be a great improvement.
After two really poor nights we are both looking forward to stopping somewhere calm and getting a decent rest.
The Channel Islands are getting really expensive for visiting yachts. Braye harbour is now £10 a night just to anchor and roll your guts out and St Peter port marina on Guernsey is now £54 a night. They really should look South where the French towns are much less. Both of us are getting really fed up with some official holding his hand out for 50 quid wherever we stop. We have met a lot of sailors really angry about it. Perhaps the Golden Goose is being cooked!!
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