July 20, 2026
I’m back on the boat and have returned from Canada with a new Chartplotter, new AIS transceiver and I now have even more projects to keep me busy.
I returned to Paris on July 13th (The day before Bastille day) and rented a car to drive back to Cherbourg. The boat was dirty but in order. When making my travel arrangements, I didn’t realize that the 14th was a holiday in France. I stayed in Cherbourg for the festivities (including the world cup quarter final on the 14th and fireworks at the marina!)
After a little bit of clean up, I left Cherbourg on the 15th and headed to Guernsey. Fuel is inexpensive in Guernsey and the islands are supposed to be nice.
During the run from Cherbourg to Guernsey, my autopilot was failing (Seatalk Error 1) and after a lot of thought and a lot of annoying alarms, hand steeering and other befuddlement, I simply unplugged the autopilot control head and everything worked again. That appears to be my failure point and removing the control head appears to have fixed the problem. All was well for the rest of the trip. (I say all was well, but in reality the new autopilot did a very poor job of handling the boat movement with the heavy currents, cross winds and other messy conditions. I may be able to adjust some settings to better handle it, but I was not impressed.)
Four days in Guernsey was enough to ride my bike around, see some sights and watch the English play some soccer. The game for 3rd place was fantastic. France vs. England and ending with a score of 6-4 for England. What a game.
Cycling on Guernsey was good, but routes are relatively short (the island is smaller than Amherst Island, population ~500, but with 70,000 or so people living there). There is a sharp hill at the edge of town that I rode a couple of times, and I was able to buy parts to fix some of my bicycle problems. I have a new rear (SRAM Rival, electronic) derailleur but I still can’t get into my lowest gear. It’s almost certainly an error in my setting it up. That hill was still possible, but I couldn’t really get my cadence up.
I departed yesterday after putting 2000 litres of diesel aboard. That was a shock to the wallet, but it’s only a little over 1/4 tank and still, if I stay between Brest and Belgium, it should last me the whole year. I think I will be doing more cycling anyway.
Yesterday I did the short run to Jersey to meet up with David and Angela, the original owners of Home Free (nee Minky), and its happy times. Their son Freddie who was 11 the last time I saw him has helped me today with a couple of projects.
The two most important projects have been getting a refrigerator repair guy on board to look at the fridge. Sub-Zero wanted 250 GBP to come out for a half hour and 250/hr after that, plus parts. The guy I used in Jersey (recommended by Sub-Zero, as well) was 120 GBP for a couple of hours of work and almost all of my problems look to be resolved without buying new parts. Not sure if my luck can hold, but I really like the service and price so far.
As well, I put a new Bosch dishwasher aboard. The old Miele failed many years ago and this may be the last time I see a UK vendor for appliances for a long time. The service guy tells me that the cost of repair will make the new Bosch the better choice. The install is almost complete, but the machine works and I can free up my dishwashing time now!
Dinner tonight with David, Angela and Freddie and tomorrow the cycling starts.
Sorry for the brevity. I was just looking to detail some of the goings on while they’re fresh in my mind.