La Hirondelle 105

 

By the light of a Blue Super-Moon, Stargazer sets sail. The wind at her back.

We glide silently past the wharves, of Cherbourg’s outer harbour. Where derricks whirr, humming to themselves as they unload cargo.

Skeins of mizzle drift in, from the Channel. Borne by our fair breeze. The tide is running hard. Feeling the power in tonight’s moon. Stargazer reaches at eleven knots over the ground. Steering to be carried south, rather than north east. Where the current forks, off a Pointe de Barfleur which is lost in an opaqueness of greys.

The plotter shows that we are off the Pointe. We sheet in, to angle south east. Speed now eight knots over the ground. The curtain of mist is abruptly torn away, in tattered shreds, by the wind.

The sun breaks through. As Stargazer races along the shore. Two miles further ahead, of a Bavaria C38, than when we lost visual contact with her, off the Cherbourg breakwater. 

Stargazer arrows toward the Vauban tower, on l’ile Tatihou, hardening sheets onto a fetch. Shaving as close in as depth permits, to cut the corner, into the bay.

Hard on the wind, Stargazer creams past La Hougue. The southern-most of the port’s fortifications. Whilst I rig lines and fenders on a tilting deck.

Watching for pot buoys, as Stargazer bounds toward the pier head, of Saint Vaast La Hougue.