Having finally left the marina we quickly settled down to the voyage ahead. Our passage plan estimated that it would take us between 18-22 hours to reach Treguier, depending on speed so leaving the marina was timed to allow us to cross the channel in darkness but arrive in Treguier in daylight hours to make navigation easier.

The winds predicted to be North West or West, force 3-4 occasionally 2 later with slight to moderate waves. However once we were in Start Bay we encountered no wind accompanied by torrential rain that looked set for the rest of the day. We did review our situation as neither of us wanted to run the engine for 18-22 hours and we certainly didn't want to be subjected to cold rain throughout the trip. However, within an hour the weather changed in our favour, the wind got up, the clouds disappeared and so we continued our voyage with the sails up sailing at approximately 5.5knts. Unfortunately the wind only lasted for a few hours and then we put the engine on after all.

The evening sky was crystal clear with hundreds of stars shining above, the sea gracefully moving underneath us and for several hours we were accompanied by a pod of dolphins glowing in the water as they disturbed the phosphorescence by coming up for air before diving under the sides of the boat. A really magical experience, certainly one that won't be forgotten.

As we crossed the shipping lanes, it was apparent that there was a significant amount of traffic (ships) but there were only a few that we needed to watch out for. These large cargo ships travel at around 15kts so it's really important that you keep an eye all around your vessel whilst navigating through this area as they can surprise you if your not keeping a good look out. For you land lubbers out there, think of the shipping lanes as a dual carriage way, traffic coming from one side, then the central reservation (the safe area) and then traffic coming from the other side and then imagine a human trying to cross this dual carriageway negotiating the speeding cars and you will kind of get what the shipping lanes are about.

Land was sighted in the early hours of Friday 13th April and as we approached the coast we were both on lookout for the relevant navigational markers that took us very close to numerous rocky outcrops and down the river to Treguier town 5 miles away. This was made pretty easy thanks to GPS technology and a chart plotter - but even then we still got the binoculars out to confirm the location of marks at times.

Overall, we could not have asked for a better crossing.

Photos can be found in the photo gallery 'Channel Crossing'.

Total distance this season: 96.5 nautical miles