Ad Lib 54

 Slowly, slowly, a breeze begins to build. By midday, it is sufficient  to send a French frigate skimming across. . . .

. . . .the St Peter Port paddling pond. Usually the preserve of pre-school Optimist sailors practicing their skills.

The forecast's prediction, of a passage-making easterly, by evening, had strained credulity in the early morning stillness. With Stargazer's shade awnings hanging motionless.

Hopes rise with the first zephyrs. Stargazer crosses the cill, into the outer harbour, as soon as there is the depth to do so. On the promise of a thermal ‘Vent Nocturne.’ To carry us to the Breizh (Breton) shore, overnight.

Ad Lib 53

 

Rippling roars reverberate around the cliffs of St Peter Port.

Le Val des Terres is closed to traffic, for a Bank Holiday Hill Climb up its steep switchbacks.

 The scent of tyre smoke and high octane fuel mingles in the still air.

Hot metal shimmers in the heat.

Final fettling is completed, in whatever shade can be engineered. 

No detail is overlooked.

Competitors while away the morning. Awaiting their summons to the start line. Eyes seldom straying from the Leader Board.

A cool head proves to be the key. . . .

. . . .to posting a winning time.

Ad Lib 52

 

The only way is up. An ascent into immaculately azure heavens.

Past the exiled Victor Hugo's island hideaway, Hauteville House. Its green front door forever shrouded in mystical shadow.

The south facing study providing the views which nourished his hungry soul.

On, up foot-worn stone steps.

Bright foliage, spills over garden walls, to light the way.

St Peter Port's architecture is eclectic spiced with exotic.

From the sun and moon wind vane. .  . .

. . . . atop the ‘minaret,’ which crowns St James Church spire. . . . .

. . . to the foresquare turrets of the Elizabeth College. With their hare eared finials. 

Ad Lib 51

 

St Peter Port steadily fills, at the start of a sizzling Late Spring Bank Holiday.

A shimmering heat haze blurs the beaches of Herm, beyond the Brehon tower. Catspaws of sea breeze softly pad, toward Guernsey, across a lightly ruffled Little Russel.

Motorboats make the most of the ideal (for them) conditions. Comfortably outnumbering arrivals under sail.

Caroline, last alongside Stargazer in Sovereign Harbour (see Ad Lib 9), puts in a surprise appearance.

Disembarking a troop of uniformed, mobile phone toting, 'deckhands.' Whom it transpires are engineers. On board to sea trial a new engine. Installed, during the week, in the venerable Vancouver 28. 

Caroline, Stargazer and a Golden Hind, named Fiddlers Green, are in agreement. With surroundings as sublime as these, and the prevailing light airs, the only sensible course of action is to enjoy our Whit Bank Holiday in situ.

Whilst preparing to take advantage of passage making easterlies, expected on Monday or Tuesday. The tides, by then, suiting an overnight passage to the Breizh (Breton) shore. If Stargazer is to benefit from a daylight landfall.

Ad Lib 50

 St Peter Port’s Castle exudes the air of an immutable counterpoint, to the swirl of motion around its firmly rooted feet. Yet, appearances are deceptive:

Castle Cornet has been a fortress since the Thirteenth Century. First built as a British fallback position, after King John lost possession of Normandy. Subsequently, it was held by French forces, during the Hundred Years War. 

Henry VIII reinforced its walls during the Sixteenth Century. Following the European discovery of gunpowder (then known to the Chinese for seven hundred years) which ushered in the age of artillery.

The cannon, of the fortress, were turned on its builders, augmented by freshly added machine gun emplacements, during the WWII Nazi occupation. 

Before the Liberation of Guernsey, on May the ninth 1945. When the changeling citadel's role reverted to protection of the island’s people.

An occasion since marked annually, by joyful street celebrations. 

Ad Lib 49

 Bordeaux Harbour, in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, surveys Herm, across the Little Russel channel.

The walls are jutting igneous injections of hard granite. Moulded from molten magma, millennia ago. Impervious since, to the steady onslaught of winter seas.

Multiple surrounding reefs are home to lobsters and crabs. The harbour to a small fleet of their hunters.

Rock strewn approaches are guarded, from historic marauders, by Vale Castle. Whilst the hillside, which it tops, wards off prevailing winds, from the south and west.

Whitewashed cottages and luxuriant foliage bask in the resultant shelter. Sea bathers stroll, from their hearths, across the soft sands of the beach.

Here, the still waters, in which shoal draft boats study their shimmering reflections, are swiftly sun-warmed. For they do not run deep. 

Ad Lib 48

 

Flags ripple and billow, tides ebb and flow, friends come and go.

Sue is on the helm of Dehler 37 Illywhacker, as usual. Once of Guernsey, these days of Gosport. Usually in St Peter Port, when Stargazer is passing through. Often as not with a similar passage plan.

This time, Illywhacker, returning from Treguier, is in more of a hurry than Stargazer. Whose skipper is resolved, in the interests of inner pleasure, not to force the tempo set by wind and tide. 

Mindful of Mike Richie's metaphor (along the lines of): Conducting a satisfying passage under sail is similar to fashioning a wooden chair (he, an accomplished wood carver). With many disparate elements to resolve into a, simultaneously aesthetically pleasing and functional, whole. (Alas, I cannot locate the original quote)

Mike, the owner of Blondie Haslar's pioneering Jester. Completing thirteen solo Atlantic crossings aboard the junk rigged, fully decked, Folkboat. Rejoicing in precision navigation by sextant, sun and star. A skill acquired during wartime service (which included a hand in the planning of the D Day Landings). Later put to civilian use, as a founding member of the Royal Institute of Navigation. Mike's full story on the  Junk Rig Association Hall of Fame.

Picture Credits

Jester on passage courtesy of Rick Tomlinson