“It was our first and only experience in 50 years of cruising of navigating by gannet!”
My thanks to Christopher for this lovely email and permission to share it.
Dear Tristan Gooley,
Thank you for your recent lecture in Steyning, which I enjoyed.
Back in the late sixties, my wife and I were on passage from Cherbourg to Alderney in a 21ft bilge keeler. This was early days for electronics: we had a compass and a depth sounder and judged speed from long experience of the boat’s behaviour. It was a sunny afternoon with enough breeze to give us three kts or so. We pottered along, trailing a spinner and generally enjoying ourselves. we were coming up to Cap de la Hague when we noticed that visibility was rapidly diminishing in a thick late-afternoon summer haze. whilst the sky above was still clear.
We estimated our last position and continued on course, then spooked ourselves: would we get carried on past Alderney; it was calm – would we be carried down the Alderney race and find ourselves south of Alderney? We decided to carry on, but nagged by doubt. Time passed and evening came; a new worry. not only lost, but lost at night!
What saved us was the gannets, in small groups, returning to their colony on the Ortac Rock, between Alderney and the Casquets. They were heading more or less south-west. We knew then we were north of our destination and turned south. Within half an hour we emerged from the mist to find Alderney in the clear in the setting sun. A very modest alteration of course brought us to the safety of Braye Harbour.
It was our first and only experience in 50 years of cruising of navigating by gannet!
Kind regards
Christopher Cooper
Thank you Christopher, your observations resonated with me and reminded me of my voyage with John Pahl off Iceland, when the puffins performed a similar role. You might enjoy my account of that trip: