The trip to town was slow (I think possibly every slow driver on the Island made it their duty to take exactly the same route as Shane was!) and due to the time, it was decided that Dave, Aidy and Karen were to get the boat out of the mariner and all fuelled up ready to go. Whilst fuelling, Shane and Helen would load the boat up and once everything safely stowed it would be off to Jersey. After finding a 10 hour parking space on a Thursday lunch time, (an achievement in itself!), there was next a dash for Shane and Helen across the road arms full of food, duvet, bags and a rather large Easter egg for Dave courtesy of Shane’s Mum! What everyone driving past must have thought God only knows!

A mad scramble down the steps by Boatworks + and Mystere is off on her trip, under sail (with the main and cruising chute). Half an hour into the trip and its 1 o’clock and must be lunchtime. Helen disappears below deck and all that can be heard is muttering, rustling of plastic bags, more muttering (getting louder by this point), zips undoing, more ferreting noises, zips being done back up again (more muttering- this time almost audible from the cockpit!) and all that can be seen from the cockpit when they look down is a small person flying from side to side, bag to bag and the odd air-born plastic bag as the food search continues. Ten minutes later, the boat is back in order and she emerges empty handed with a look of mild frustration on her face. The two loaves of French bread that took up probably the best part of 20 minutes to prepare for the crew had been forgotten in her rush to leave the house. On the plus side, she did remember to bring the bag of junk food! 5 people at lunchtime, no sandwiches (as were promised, which is why no one else made any!), looking ahead to a possible 4- 5 hour sail to Jersey with umpteen bags of crisps, chocolate fingers, and bottled water! At least the water was remembered, and crisps, however unhealthy do fill a gap!

Other than the distinct lack of food the trip passed quickly and without problems. Mystere did an average of 7.4 knots all the way, and despite the late, start arrived in St Helier just under 4 hours later, much to the crews’ relief. The premature arrival however meant that the tide was still a few hours too low to allow access into the main marina, so she was u-turned right in the harbour mouth by skipper Dave, and “landed” behind a rather ‘fat’ French yacht! After a quick tidy up of ropes, sails, crisp bags and chocolate wrappers it was straight off to get some well deserved nutrition…this was to come in the form of KFC. This to some may sound a strange request and something slightly healthier or more filling may seem the more obvious choice (especially after eating only crisps and chocolate for lunch!), however, on Guernsey we have no ‘fast food’ restaurants in any shape or form so KFC is actually almost a luxury (OK not luxury, more a ‘treat’!).