At 4am on the 6th May: Coronation Day, we departed Queenborough for Calais. Conditions were good, it wasn’t long before the sun began to rise. David Piper our Skipper was a little concerned that with the low light it may make it difficult to see any lobster pot marker bouys. Not great to get a rope around the prop. Thankfully none came into our path but several seals popped up to see us. As we proceeded along the north Kent coast past Herne Bay and Margate the tide was rapidly dropping. Beaches began to rise to our left with the coastline to the right. For some unknown reason the depth gauge was intermittent so it was essential to stay on Davids plotted route to avoid grounding. The scenery was stunning with huge wind farms and WWII forts off the port bow in

At North Foreland we turned onto a southerly heading towards Calais. This turn is roughly half way from Queenborough. Goodwin sand were very clear on the right and the East Goodwin Lightship could be seen in the distance. The Channel in this narrow area has a Traffic Separation System to keep commercial traffic in opposite directions separate. Although the traffic looks dramatic on the Marine Traffic App in practice there’s plenty of time to see and avoid ships. We did have one occasion where we were on a conflicting course with a container ship. We elected to slow let it pass and go astern. Channel VTS monitoring us on AIS and radar called on VHF Radio to ask our intentions and was satisfied that we were avoiding this ship. Thankfully its wake was fairly flat as we passed astern.

The remainder of the cruise was uneventful and with an average speed over the water of 8 kts we arrived outside Calais in a little over 8 hours. We were instructed to wait for 3 car ferries to manoeuvre in and out before we could enter the port. Once in, we made for the mooring bouys located outside the marina where we had a short wait until the road swing bridge moved allowing access to the marina.

I had already contacted the marina to arrange 3 weeks mooring so after a few beers, dinner and a good nights sleep it was simply a task of shutting the boat down and heading home by ferry.

Before crossing the Channel; following Brexit there’s now additional administration to complete:

The UK Border force require details of the passage to or from the UK up to 24hours before departure. This is completed online – https://www.spcr.homeoffice.gov.uk/voyage-plans

Having not arrived through a border crossing point we had to pre-notify the police aux frontières of our pending arrival and then present our passports at the PAF office in Calais so they could be stamped. The form is available on the Calais Marina website which if you email it back they will forward to the PAF. The PAF office is at the new ferry port. Thankfully the guidance on the Cruising Association site made this simple to find and the French police were most efficient.