When winter was over and some extra work on Yanula Blue was completed at Portland, we were ready for 2025!

Visa appllication

One of our winter jobs had been to apply for 6 month Visitor Visa for France – called VLS-T.  We had duly filled in lots of paperwork justifying our reason for wanting the visa, we had given proof of financial self sufficiency, made commitments not to work, and taken a day trip to the Visa Processing Centre in Manchester for a 2 hour appointment and biometrics.

We were thrilled when the visa arrived, although confused why it was dated to start 10 April rather than 20 April – but not to worry as we didn’t have a precise day in mind and would let fate work it out!!

We intended to do a shake down sail from Portland to Poole where we were going to spend a few weeks with final provisioning and socialising at our favourite marina Poole Quay Boat Haven.

Unfortunately Jenni contracted Norovirus whilst in Portland – it was quite nasty and delayed our return by a few days, and was our first experience of being ill on the boat.  We knew it would happen some time – but maybe not so soon into the year!! Luckily Chris didn’t succumb and eventually Jenni was well enough to make the journey.

Setting sail for Poole

We left Portland on 14 March and the first sail was lovely – nice wind and nice weather, if a bit cold so early in the year! We left early with the tide and did various checks en-route, including tacking with the inner forestay in place, which was new to us!

We were welcomed by Border Force as we got near to Poole.  We could see the main patrol vessel and a rib, which motored over to ask us some questions – where had we come from, had we been into international waters, who was on board, etc?  The gentlemen were very pleasant and sent us on our way, probably satisfied by our northern accents that we weren’t international terrorists (or possibly having seen our track from Portland on AIS as well!)

We enjoyed time in Poole but soon were ready to head to France.  We left Poole at 0600 on Thursday 10 April as the weather was perfect – and we were very glad for the accidental date on the Visas!  One of our marina friends Pat was up on her deck, wrapped in a blanket against the early chill, to wave us off which made the departure extra special.

Crossing the channel

It was a lovely initial first few hours, Force 3 – 4 wind with the sun shining, although clouds soon arrived and there was a chill in the air.  We had carefully carried out our route planning, but realised whilst under way that we hadn’t got it quite right, so adjusted as we went which was a good learning point! It had been a while since we crossed the channel after all!

We avidly watched for big ships in the shipping lanes, but didn’t come across anything concerning.  We heard a Man OverBoard (MOB) incident being discussed on the radio, which always sends a chill through any sailors’ heart!

It was, all in all, an uneventful sail and we arrived after 70 miles at around 6pm French time.  It struck us that our second sail of the season was one that previously would have felt like a really big deal – an actual channel crossing – but now it was becoming more and more natural to us.

We moored in Cherbourg Port Chantereyne marina, too late to check in, but they were aware of our arrival and we knew which pontoons were for visitors.  Ironically we were moored next to a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 35, which was our first boat called Sansovino! Jenni had often been convinced there wasn’t much difference between Sansovino and Yanula Blue, but seeing the two next to each other, just the build and robustness was starkly different, never mind the size.

Checking in to France on our Visa

The next morning we went to check in at the marina and asked for details of checking in with the PAF (Police Aux Frontieres) which we needed to do to be legally in France.  In the summertime the PAF will go to the marina 1 to 2 times a day to check sailors in and out – but as we were early in the season we had to go to them.

We had a nice walk to the PAF, taking all our paperwork with us, and were checked in simply and easily in a few minutes!

That was it – we were officially in France!