First channel crossing!

Joanna Spencer-Smith

Beautiful sunny day, started early (5:30 set off) to catch the tide at Hurst. Full sails up as F4 wind from the East. Once out of the shadow of the Isle of Wight wind increased to around 20kt. Paul decided to update the chart on an hourly basis to check our progress. Apparently it’s much harder to get pen to paper when the boat is all tippy-uppy! Especially when it reached F6 (26kt) when I was on the helm. Decided to reef around 10 7:30 until about 11:30. I got a little nauseous despite relative calm see state. Paul kept forgetting to update chart… Kept sailing until about 16:30 when wind died. We were only 2miles outside Cherbourg by then, so motored in. Picked the berth furthest away from the office! 34 degrees here - rehydrating!!