Read on for the full write up of our trip aboard Mystere to Jersey for the Easter weekend. More pictures can be found in the gallery here.

[img] The holiday got off to an early start on Good Friday as we had arranged to meet at the boat at 8am. I had decided to ride down on my bike as we would be taking our bikes on the trip it would save me the hassle of leaving my car parked somewhere for a weekend. I had a bit of a surprise when I got down to the marina and realised I could not see the other side of the marina due to the fog.

After packing a few things away I popped off to the French style coffee shop nearby for a traditional pre-sail coffee. As soon as Shane and Helen turned up after running out of petrol in the mini in the most convenient place possible (at the top of a hill with a petrol station at the bottom!) it was time to get the boat shifted out of the mooring and onto a tempeory pontoon in the main harbour. Upon motoring out of the marina, we realised that we really could not see a great deal but with the aid of our trusty GPS we where able to figure out how to get into the harbour. In the process of doing this we overtook a very slow moving motorboat who then got annoyed that a yacht had overtaken him and decided to follow us as we (sort of) knew where we where going. Apparently they where paying so much attention to where we where going that they did not see the rocks they very nearly crashed into! Once safely moored up it was back off into town to get some last minute shopping done.

Once in town we discovered that being Good Friday, there was not a lot of shops actually open. We did manage to get some magazines to read on the boat, an insulated mug as I had forgotten mine and a small fridge for the boat. Once finished shopping it was time to head back for more coffee and cakes from the French coffee shop before the walk back to the marina and row out to the pontoon.

[img] When we got back to the boat we setup the sails and decided to head off even though visibility was limited at best. With this in mind we decided that it would probably be a wise precaution to hoist the radar reflector. To get the radar reflector hoisted we had to do a bit of a bodge that involved using zip ties to hold it to the backstay and the topping lift rope to hoist it with another piece of rope to bring it back down again.

As we made progress towards Jersey at speeds of up to 9kts speed over ground, we decided to give “Zippy” a quick try. Zippy is the adopted name for our Autohelm unit. As we had not yet managed to get Zippy to automatically head for pre-programmed way points, we just decided to leave it pointing us in the right direction whilst a lunch of super noodles and instant cappuccino was served up. At times the sun did emerge through the fog as we approached Jersey and by the time we arrived in St Helier at about 4.30 pm it was a pretty nice day and it had been a pretty smooth crossing.

[img] Once we managed to find a berth in the visitors section in the marina, we set about tidying up the boat a bit. This involved rebuilding our bikes that had been stripped and scatted all over the boat. Once we had finished that off we realised that we did not have a bike lock between us so the only place we could leave them was lashed together in a large bundle on the foredeck of the boat – quite an impressive bit of rope work even if I do say so myself!

Our next task was connecting up the shore power to get the heater / dehumidifier running for a bit so that we could dry the boat out a bit after the days sailing and get the batteries charging. This should have been fairly straightforward but due to the previously mentioned electrical difficulties it turned out to be anything but. Whenever we connected shore power we blew the trip in the electricity supply box. After taking every electrical connection on the 240v side apart and putting them back together one at a time to test things we where still without power. At this point it was getting a bit late and the marina attendant was no longer available to pay a visit to reset the trip again.
[img] After a lot of head scratching we decided that it must either be the cable from the shore power box or the connecter at the back of the boat. Given that the connector was a bit rusty and had been cleaned 3 times now in the last week then it was probably that.

Given that it was too late to buy a new one we decided to head out for some well earned food. After a quick walk around we headed for the Pizza Hut located near the marina. By this time I was getting rather hungry after a long day of sailing and repairing the boat. Unfortunately I think that the days activities had taken their toll on my ability to order a sensible amount of food. In the end I decided upon a Stuffed crust meat feast pizza despite a note of caution from the waitress and Shane telling me that he could not eat a whole one last time he was in jersey! Upon reflection maybe I should have noticed in the menu that that pizza is recommended for 2 – 4 people!! Unperturbed by the fact that the pizza itself took up half of the table I did manage to eat the whole pizza and order dessert much to the surprise of the waitress and everyone else at the table..

After getting up early the next morning I took a wander across the road to a couple of chandleries to pick up a new connector block and headed back to the boat to connect it up and check things. Unfortunately when I got back I realised that it was a slightly different shape and would not fit without some minor modifications to the deck. Fortunately we had a decent toolkit with us and half an hour later the hole had been modified with the help of a junior hacksaw and some small files. [img] After a quick bit of wiring up and another visit from the marina attendant we finally had shore power working. To celebrate Shane and I went off to the yacht club for a couple of social pints of Guinness while Helen went off shopping. The afternoon was spent leisurely shopping in town before heading back to the boat to try and play a game of Pirates, the strategy game that Shane had brought. The game involved using little cardboard pirate ships and islands and collecting treasure. Before we could decide who had won we decided to head out for food and to watch a film.

KFC was decided upon as the place to eat as it was close to the cinema. I think that this was the first KFC that I had eaten and will probably be the last as it was complete and utter crap! The film, Constantine, was much better though.

The next day was somewhat of a later start with it being about 2pm before we left the boat and headed for the Living Legend. We would have ridden our bikes to the Living Legend but as it had been raining we decided to take the bus which gave us just enough time to pop in for a coffee in a Christian themed coffee shop just outside the bus station which was absolutely packed due to it being Easter Sunday possibly.

[img] Once we arrived at the Living Legend we decided to get some food first before playing a round of Crazy golf. After 18 holes of near misses, a hole in one and some interesting photography we had just about enough time for some more coffee before catching the bus back. We then headed back to the St Helier Yacht club for a couple of pre dinner drinks before heading into town to get some food.

The destination for our evening meal was the Chicago Rock Café. This is a mix of restaurant and lively bar with live entertainment / big TVs. Normally I don’t mind places like this but when your table is located a few metres away from the live band that are playing so loud you have to lean over the table and shout to hold a conversation it becomes a slightly less appealing place to eat. What really made the situation worse was that the drummer in the live band located right next to us must have been testing out some NASA designed titanium alloy drum kit as he was playing (and I do use the term playing loosely!) with such force that I was surprised that he had not managed to smash the drums to bits. When the band eventually stopped we had a visit from the waitress asking us if we wanted to fill out some survey forms in return for some money off vouchers. We all agreed to this but to avoid the inevitable barrage of junk mail through the post, we all decided to use a random combination of surnames of people we knew and random addresses. The end result was we got some effectively free drinks and they got some not entirely accurate survey information. After heading back to the boat we watched a film and tried to prepare for the early start we had the next morning in order to catch the right tides.

On the morning of departure we woke up to a lot of fog and limited visibility again. We managed to leave at about 8am and made reasonable progress with the motor. At one point we decided to save some fuel and put up the cruising sheet and then realising that was not going to work we put the spinnaker up. After half an hour or so sailing with the spinnaker we decided that we needed to use the motor again before we lost the benefit of the tides. After a quick lunch of pot noodles and instant cappuccino we went to let Zippy take over. Unfortunately Zippy was having an off day and decided to steer the boat in a complete circle no mater what heading we set. After trying to sort that problem out we finally gave up on the idea and motored the rest of the way back home. Unfortunately we had just missed the deadline for getting back into the marina so had to moor up in the tempeory moorings before packing up a bit and heading home for a well earned rest before heading back later in the evening to begin the process of converting Mystere back from cruising yacht to racing yacht in time for the following weekend.