We set off to the east on the Sunday morning and running with the tide we hit 10 knots over the ground with our novice Helm Janine on duty. We rounded Bembridge and headed south towards St Vaast, the wind dropped but later returned for a good run acrosss arriving just after midnight.

On the Monday we set off around mid day and sailed along the coast on a gentle northerly passing Utah plus Omaha beaches and then on to Arrowmanche where we crept in and dropped anchor in Port Winston, the harbour created just after D-Day.

We were alone and blessed with a superb sunset and quiet night. In the morning I ran the crew ashore in the tender and they visited the fascinating museum whilst I cleaned up Wild Spirit and hoped that when we pulled up the hook there wouldn’t be a bomb on the end.

The wind freshened from the west which was definitely not forecast and I became concerned we might not make it back to St Vaast before the Gates closed. As one of the crew was ex navy I thought I would hoist the Blue Peter, which he would know, meant we had to go. In the absence of a big Blue Peter I used the JOG battle flag and thought sure they would at least phone me. I rang all the mobile phones and found most were on board, whilst Geoff had his off as he was in the museum. The only effect was to give all the tourists on the front more photo opportunities.

We left at the original time and I calculated we needed to make almost 6 kts to get there on time, fortunately the wind backed to South West and soon we were sailing at 8 knots and bang on course. The sun shone and we arrived an hour and a half before the gates closed.

The meal in the Fuschia was as good as ever and after a good night we completed our wine shopping at Grosellins had a good lunch out and set sail at 1600 with a fine westerly wind. The forecasts varied but it was clear the weather would break probably with a N or NW wind and squalls. With this in mind we headed more or less towards St Catts making up to 9.5 knots over the ground at times. Around midnight as we were close to St Catts the wind turned to the North and increased. By now we were close in and sailing fast towards Bembridge, we rounded this as the tide turned and shot across to Stokes Bay where we dropped anchor around 0200and had a few hours sleep before our run home.

An excellent trip and one we will try and repeat next year, possibly with another couple of days so we can pop into Honfleur as well.