Blogs from St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, Europe

For those of you that only know of the Channel Islands off the coast of California, the ones we sailed to are located 10-30 miles to the northwest of France. The Channel Islands have a very interesting and unique history. When the Normans first controlled Normandy, currently part of France, the Channel Islands were part of Normandy and thus belonged to the Duke of Normandy. In 1066 when the Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings, the Duke of Normandy became the King of England. This meant that the King of England not only ruled over England but also controlled Normandy and the Channel Islands. In around 1240 the French took control of Normandy but were unable to get control of the Channel Islands meaning to this day they have remained under the control ... read more

Left Dartmouth on July 26th at 6.45am (later than anticipated due to Mike having to pukll an all-nighter to sort his tools and store them!) with sun shining brightly on the flat sea. Our nerves about meeting a tanker were soon tested as we found ourselves on a collision course with a freakin huge one just outside Dartmouth and had to stop to bob over the huuuuge wake it left behind! However, when we actually got to the shipping lanes, all we could see were these huge leviathans on the horizon - who'd have thought our closest encounter would be less than an hour out to sea?! We dealt with a few hairy moments on the crossing - some pretty big rolling waves were hitting us side on for a few hours causing a lot of ... read more