St. Helier Tides

 Jersey has a roughly 12 meter tidal range (the difference in "sea level" between the lowest and highest stages of tidal ebb and flood). It's hard to comprehend just what that means, but these pictures may help.

The difference in height between high and low water varies according to the monthly lunar cycle, with the largest difference occurring just after new and full moons (so-called "spring tides"), and the smallest difference occurring around the waxing and waning half-moons ("neap tides"). There are other factors that affect the tidal range, so there is also slight variation among spring tide ranges from month to month.

 We are, as I write this, at the height of this month's spring tide, with the port of St. Helier having an 11.2 meter difference between high and low water. Here in the marina, we are sheltered from the very lowest tide by a "sill", which traps water in the marina as the tide recedes, helping keep the boats behind the sill afloat. So the pictures below don't even reflect the entire tidal range.

This first pair of pictures was taken looking towards Idril, currently docked at the end of the "B" pontoon in St. Helier Marina. Note the large dark piling on the left (with a white cap labeled "B" on its top).

Low water

High water. Yes, Katy has her foot on the top of that same piling.

This next pair shows the "Welcome" sign on the marina seawall at low and high water.

If you look closely at the bottom of that railing, it becomes clear that even a slight storm surge would flood that sidewalk and street at the top of the seawall, to say nothing of what a meter of sea level rise would do.

There is a ramp from the pontoons up to the top of the seawall and the marina office and facilities. The angle of that ramp varies a lot, too. At high water springs, the ramp actually slopes slightly down from the pontoons to the gate.

Finally, remember that sill I mentioned, which we have to sail over to get into the marina? Here's the view from the outside of the marina at low water springs. The water in the marina is protected from going that low by the sill.

There are a few more pictures of the tidal range, including some "high water humor", in this album.

St. Vincent volcano from space

 Yesterday (Friday, April 9, 2021) the La Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent in the Caribbean erupted explosively.  I went looking for good images on news sites, with little success, so I went to the NOAA satellite imagery site and poked around.

Sure enough - there are images from GOES (the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system). I used their image capture tool to download successive images at 10 minute intervals. You can find them all in this album.

Cherbourg to Jersey

 Katy and I are now in St. Helier Marina on the Channel Island of Jersey. We left Cherbourg a bit after noon on Good Friday and arrived shortly before dusk. We positively flew for most of the trip. We had strong (25-35 knot) east-northeast winds most of the way, we were able to catch a helpful west-going tidal eddy as we passed along the northwest corner of the Cotentin peninsula, and we had tidal currents with us for the remainder of the voyage. Here's our track from Marine Traffic:

 

We averaged 9.9 knots!

We're settled onto the "hammerhead" end of "B" dock, which gives us a good view of the entrance to the marina. We get to watch a steady stream of boat traffic for entertainment while the marina is open, which is three hours each side of high tide. The entrance to the marina is a "sill", which is just what it sounds like: a wall, or set of low gates, that retain the water in the marina at a sufficient height. That height is low relative to the entire tidal range (which, here in Jersey, is an enormous 12 meters!), so during the period around high tide, boats can float in and out over the sill. In an area with large tide swings, it's an elegant solution to keeping boats afloat during low tide without the need for locks or swinging gates. But you must time your arrival and departure such that your boat (including its keel and rudder...) will clear the sill. Here's what happens if you don't:

Ouch...

 

We'll be here for at least two weeks, with the first 11 days spent strictly aboard the boat in quarantine. We had our "day zero" COVID-19 arrival tests (negative - yea!) on Saturday morning, which will be followed by 5- and 10-day tests. Assuming those next two tests are also negative, we'll be released on day 11, and can begin exploring Jersey. And, assuming the rules don't change (a large assumption...), we'll then be able to sail directly from Jersey to the southern coast of the U.K. and not have to quarantine upon arrival. We should also be able to get the first of two vaccination shots before we leave, getting us started on the road towards a little less worry about the coronavirus.

How did we wind up in Jersey? There's a bit of a tale to tell.

Our goal for some time had been to leave Cherbourg by the end of last week (Friday, April 2nd). While we have informal assurance from the Manche prefecture that our residence permits will be renewed for another 3 months, we have nothing official to that effect, so we figured that we had best be gone by midnight on April 2nd to avoid overstaying our current permits.

Our initial plan was to go to Portsmouth or Southampton on the southern coast of England. We would have to quarantine for 10 days after arrival, but we figured we could probably manage to get our GoCycles sent off for some required service during that time, which would be great: we can't ride them while in quarantine. We had a berth reserved in Portsmouth and were settled on that plan, when we discovered, somewhat by accident, that we would not be able to quarantine on the boat, but would have to go to a special quarantine hotel - at 750 GBP per night!

Ouch.

A few frantic phone calls later, we were assured by the harbor master in St. Helier that we could quarantine on the boat, so Jersey it was.

Checking out of Cherbourg was interesting. Before Brexit, there was little point in "officially" clearing out of Cherbourg, since nearly all destinations in easy reach were in the Schengen free-travel zone. Now, though, since we were headed to Jersey, we really needed to formally leave France. But there isn't any obvious place to do that in Cherbourg.

So - we scheduled a visit by the "PAF" (the French border police) for early Friday morning. Two very pleasant and polite officers arrived at the boat at 5:30AM, stamped our passports, and were on their way. We're committed!

As noted above, we left about 12:30PM and had a great sail over.

On Saturday morning, after our day zero tests, we were visited by the Jersey customs officers and had our passports stamped for entry to Jersey. We should be good for 6 months in the Common Travel Area without further visa issues. Yea!

Pictures from the trip here.