Rookie question
- Thread starter Paulfireblade
- Start date
DanTribe
Well-Known Member
On one of my first trips to Ostend in the 1980s, we were looking at an aerial photo of the Montgomery Basin. My skipper's Dad pipes up with a loud voice "I think that is the photo I took from my Lancaster".
MJBorley
New Member
This post is quite long. I hope that is OK.
As I have just done my first cross channel trip, which was Ramsgate to Calais, I thought the OP might be interested in my experiences. I'm not claiming any of this is "right", it's just how it panned out for me. I'm writing this in Dover, having done Calais to Dover on the return trip (because I had not been to Dover before).
Tomahawk says "Ramsgate is actually a magical place unlike any other in the UK. You are in the centre of the town with all the shops and pubs right next to you. Leave on LW as the tide turns south. Follow the deep water chanel due east (crossing the tide) till Goodwin Knoll buoy. Point at Dunkirk (130 degrees) and the tide takes you to Calais in time for the bridge to open into the marina near HW." Being a sceptical sort of person I plotted this route (actually to the CPOD buoy, which is approx 2 Nm East (upstream) of Calais) and it didn't look much like 130 degrees. I then applied the necessary tidal corrections and the course to steer came out as 129 degrees, so Tomahawk was spot on (given that I only attempt to steer in increments of 5 degrees).
I completed the .xls version of form C1331 and emailed it off the day before I left Ramsgate. I completed the "return" copy of the form (its the same form) and emailed that the day before leaving Calais but got a polite reply saying I should email it when I arrived back in the UK as this would get a quicker response than if I phoned the National Yachtline. Sure enough, within half an hour of sending the return copy off (again) when I arrived at Dover I got an email saying everything was in order and I could lower my "Q" flag.
On arriving in Calais the harbour staff said a lot of UK boats had just arrived so the police might come down to the marina to do the immigration formalities. Several hours later they did turn up and about half an hour after that they came back again because they had forgotten to bring their immigration stamp the first time. I had to complete a very short form with the boat details and details of the people on board - it didn't ask for anywhere near the same amount of information as the C1331. They didn't ask to see any of my documents except the passports, which they stamped.
Leaving wasn't so simple. Apparently the police don't come to the marina at the weekend (and as their appearance seems to have been triggered by the number of UK boats arriving I'm not sure they would have come just to give us our exit stamp, besides which they didn't know we were leaving anyway). Not to worry, I Googled "Calais Port Immigration". Big mistake. It showed the immigration office being 1.6 Km away.I asked the marina staff if there was a bus, there is, but it doesn't run on Sundays. But 1.6 Km is only a mile, so we decided to walk. Google must measure it as the crow flies, because by the time we arrived we had walked 2.5 miles and it was deserted. I don't mean shut, the entire area was deserted and the office clearly hadn't been used for a long time. Fortunately the security guards who turned up in a van to find out what we were doing were able to tell us that we had arrived at the "old port" and immigration is in the "new port", very close to the P&O Ferries booking office. Unfortunately they couldn't take us there, they couldn't even take us out of the area we weren't supposed to be in! (in fairness they wanted to, but they made the mistake of radioing their boss to see if it was OK and he said "no").
The man at the immigration office (about 200m behind the P&O ticket office) was very keen to establish that we were leaving that same day and once the passports were stamped we should return to our boat and not leave it before we set sail. We planned to leave at 07:00 the following morning. Let's just say something might have got lost in translation because we left with the required exit stamps. We took a taxi back. It cost 13 Euros but we had to wait a long time for it. If I had to do it again on a Sunday I would get a taxi there, have him/her wait and then take us back.
A few points on sailing into Calais. My copy of "North Sea Passage Pilot" is not the most recent edition, but it says Calais Marina and lock should be contacted on Ch 17. That is Calais Port, the Marina is on Ch 9 (perhaps the latest version has corrected this). We had to wait for 2 ferries before we could enter the harbour, but that was fine. I certainly wouldn't worry about the volume of ferry traffic. On once occasion we saw 4 ferries entering or leaving in quick succession but Calais Port control give clear instructions on where to wait and how long for. The "traffic lights" that show when you can pass through the main harbour from the Bassin du Paradis (which is the "waiting area" outside the marina) when leaving are mounted in a nice shiny stainless steel column which reflects the sunlight making the lights difficult to see. On first glance all you see is sunlight reflecting off the steel.
One final point - if, like us, you travel down to Ramsgate from Felixstow/Harwich, do make use of "Crossing the Thames Estuary" by Roger Gaspar. It takes all the stress out of planning the crossing. I have the second edition and the third edition is even easier to use.
As I have just done my first cross channel trip, which was Ramsgate to Calais, I thought the OP might be interested in my experiences. I'm not claiming any of this is "right", it's just how it panned out for me. I'm writing this in Dover, having done Calais to Dover on the return trip (because I had not been to Dover before).
Tomahawk says "Ramsgate is actually a magical place unlike any other in the UK. You are in the centre of the town with all the shops and pubs right next to you. Leave on LW as the tide turns south. Follow the deep water chanel due east (crossing the tide) till Goodwin Knoll buoy. Point at Dunkirk (130 degrees) and the tide takes you to Calais in time for the bridge to open into the marina near HW." Being a sceptical sort of person I plotted this route (actually to the CPOD buoy, which is approx 2 Nm East (upstream) of Calais) and it didn't look much like 130 degrees. I then applied the necessary tidal corrections and the course to steer came out as 129 degrees, so Tomahawk was spot on (given that I only attempt to steer in increments of 5 degrees).
I completed the .xls version of form C1331 and emailed it off the day before I left Ramsgate. I completed the "return" copy of the form (its the same form) and emailed that the day before leaving Calais but got a polite reply saying I should email it when I arrived back in the UK as this would get a quicker response than if I phoned the National Yachtline. Sure enough, within half an hour of sending the return copy off (again) when I arrived at Dover I got an email saying everything was in order and I could lower my "Q" flag.
On arriving in Calais the harbour staff said a lot of UK boats had just arrived so the police might come down to the marina to do the immigration formalities. Several hours later they did turn up and about half an hour after that they came back again because they had forgotten to bring their immigration stamp the first time. I had to complete a very short form with the boat details and details of the people on board - it didn't ask for anywhere near the same amount of information as the C1331. They didn't ask to see any of my documents except the passports, which they stamped.
Leaving wasn't so simple. Apparently the police don't come to the marina at the weekend (and as their appearance seems to have been triggered by the number of UK boats arriving I'm not sure they would have come just to give us our exit stamp, besides which they didn't know we were leaving anyway). Not to worry, I Googled "Calais Port Immigration". Big mistake. It showed the immigration office being 1.6 Km away.I asked the marina staff if there was a bus, there is, but it doesn't run on Sundays. But 1.6 Km is only a mile, so we decided to walk. Google must measure it as the crow flies, because by the time we arrived we had walked 2.5 miles and it was deserted. I don't mean shut, the entire area was deserted and the office clearly hadn't been used for a long time. Fortunately the security guards who turned up in a van to find out what we were doing were able to tell us that we had arrived at the "old port" and immigration is in the "new port", very close to the P&O Ferries booking office. Unfortunately they couldn't take us there, they couldn't even take us out of the area we weren't supposed to be in! (in fairness they wanted to, but they made the mistake of radioing their boss to see if it was OK and he said "no").
The man at the immigration office (about 200m behind the P&O ticket office) was very keen to establish that we were leaving that same day and once the passports were stamped we should return to our boat and not leave it before we set sail. We planned to leave at 07:00 the following morning. Let's just say something might have got lost in translation because we left with the required exit stamps. We took a taxi back. It cost 13 Euros but we had to wait a long time for it. If I had to do it again on a Sunday I would get a taxi there, have him/her wait and then take us back.
A few points on sailing into Calais. My copy of "North Sea Passage Pilot" is not the most recent edition, but it says Calais Marina and lock should be contacted on Ch 17. That is Calais Port, the Marina is on Ch 9 (perhaps the latest version has corrected this). We had to wait for 2 ferries before we could enter the harbour, but that was fine. I certainly wouldn't worry about the volume of ferry traffic. On once occasion we saw 4 ferries entering or leaving in quick succession but Calais Port control give clear instructions on where to wait and how long for. The "traffic lights" that show when you can pass through the main harbour from the Bassin du Paradis (which is the "waiting area" outside the marina) when leaving are mounted in a nice shiny stainless steel column which reflects the sunlight making the lights difficult to see. On first glance all you see is sunlight reflecting off the steel.
One final point - if, like us, you travel down to Ramsgate from Felixstow/Harwich, do make use of "Crossing the Thames Estuary" by Roger Gaspar. It takes all the stress out of planning the crossing. I have the second edition and the third edition is even easier to use.
tillergirl
Well-Known Member
Thank you kindly 