Night Sailing Through WWII History in Normandie & Battling Crazy Tidal Currents

Night Sailing Through WWII History in Normandie & Battling Crazy Tidal Currents

Welcome back. Last time the winds weren’t in our favor. Strong headwinds forced us to stay put in the French town Bologn, but that didn’t stop us from continuing our adventure. Just not out on the ocean with our sailboat. We took a trip to Paris, slowed down for a bit, and simply enjoyed life as liverboards. It was nice to just get cozy where we were and make the most of it. But now the weather has finally turned in our favor. We get a 48 hour window with great winds and we’re making the most of it. We are studying the winds on Windy trying to make the best out of these 48 hours that are coming with pretty decent winds. We set off for our very first night sail covering 110 nautical miles south. The conditions are amazing, and when the sun rises over the ocean horizon, it’s really something special. During our sail, we get a close interaction with a French Coast Guard helicopter flying low above us and circulating around the boat. I don’t know if they are like checking if we smuggle people or something. I’ve heard that some boats do smuggle people between UK and Europe. Along the way, we sail past the D-Day beaches from World War II. Today, a peaceful coastline, but with a past that’s anything but quiet. We make stops in DP and Sherbour. And during a walk through the city, we end up in the middle of something that feels very French, a bicycle race. From there, we round Capaging one of the strongest tidal currents in Europe. And it’s a challenging sail. To make it through smoothly, everything has to line up. The wind, the currents, the waves. Subscribe to join us on our adventure towards the Mediterranean. Welcome to Sail and Doxy. Good morning. It’s uh around 6:00 in the morning and we are preparing for a very long sail. We are planning to sail about 150 nautical miles today which is our record by far. We haven’t sailed for more than around 12 hours before. Uh and that is mainly because of Nora because she has to be a boo sometimes. But um we have our little grass carpet that we have on the boat and uh she has peed on there many times. So we we figure we will have to try today and push it because we will only have good winds for around 48 hours. Hello. Good morning. Are we getting ready to leave soon? Yes. The door is coming in. The the door is coming in. See you out there. Bye-bye. You have been a good pit stop. Heat. Heat. We We have started our voyage and um I think we’re doing good. It’s kind of bouncy but uh it’s all right. We have the wind against us. We are studying the winds on windy trying to make the best out of these 48 hours that are coming with pretty decent winds. Our first thought was to sail for about 24 hours today or more like during the night, but I feel like the winds will be not the best tonight. So maybe it will be even better to make an overnighter tomorrow instead. But um I think we will have to see. Right now we will just sail as far as we can and then I think we will make up our minds during the day. It looks like we will have a complete headwind this afternoon. And in that case I feel like it’s better to to stop and uh rest for a bit and continue when we don’t have a headwind. It’s now 10:30 and Eric is hungry. So, I’m going to prep our lunch. I have already prepped pretty much everything. I am just going to add some feta cheese to our salad. And we have we have also decided that we will go to dep today. So that’s about a 50 nautical mile trip. We will have too much headwind uh after a while. So it will be hard to continue today. But the winds are looking even better tomorrow. So we will start early. Oh my god. Not looking very pretty, but feta cheese salad with some Sriracha mayo is today’s lunch. This helicopter keeps circulating around us. Okay, that was pretty weird that we were intercepted by a helicopter by the French Coast Guard and they didn’t call on us or anything. They just circulated very close to us like three times and then they left. But both me and Eric got like a pulse. They even flew so close that our sail started to flap. Yeah, they left now. So, everything’s good, I guess. I don’t know if they are like checking if we smuggle people or something because I’ve heard that some boats do smuggle people between UK and Europe. So, I don’t know if that was what they were doing. But we were like waving. The beanie is on again. Yes. It’s more for the wind. Yeah. It’s annoying when you get the wind in your ears. It’s true. You look cute. Now we have sailed uh 48 nautical miles over ground and 58 through water. So I understand that as we have had more uh current against us than with us. It’s been back and forth bits. Yeah. And how many nautical miles do we have left? Uh seven. Woo. So, about an hour in this field. Very nice. It’s been a good sail today, I think. A bit choppy in the beginning, but yeah, we’ve been on a close hall all day, so we’ve been tilting a lot. It’s about 15 to 20°. We try to keep it below 15. And as we have started to sail into Normandy, we were talking about that we want to watch the movie Saving Private Ryan to recollect. I have already seen all movies and all documentaries about World War II. Yes, but I haven’t watched a lot of war movies. But I mean, since Band of Brothers is one of my favorite shows, why wouldn’t I like Saving Private Ryan? We decided to go into dep instead of continuing all the way to uh Sherburg today because tomorrow the winds are even better and not even yeah tomorrow because we’re leaving at midnight uh in the dark to uh sail to Sherborg. So, it’s going to be one of our first uh sailing in the darkness. It will also be our longest sail yet. 18 hours we believe it would take us, but you never know. It’s 110 makes sense in uh six knots average speed. Yeah, that would take us about 18 hours. Uh too bad we can’t explore uh DEP because it’s very nice city and they have a lot of uh nice houses and old houses and I believe DEP was somewhat unharmed during the war also. Once we get to Sheper we will probably get stuck for a few days again with the strong headwinds. Um, yeah. So, we need to speed up to get to breast so we can try to find a window to cross the Bay of Pisque. Good morning. I just woke up from a 2hour nap. It was very good. Eric has been doing great out here, I think. Yes, very smooth sailing. I feel like for being our first night sail, these conditions are perfect. The sea is very calm and the winds are pretty steady. I’ve been hearing you turning on the motor a few times. Yeah, we have a we have a time schedule. We need to get into Sherwood before a certain time because the current there can be like up to four knots and you don’t want to have that against you. So, we need to have an average speed around 6 knots. So, that’s what we’re aiming for. Time is now4 to 5 and uh the moon is slowly going down and it’s you can see all the stars. It’s very very beautiful and I can’t wait to see the sunrise. I guess I’m taking over now so you can have a nap. It’s getting a little bit spicy. See, waves are building up. The wind is picking up. We have slept too little. How far do we have left? Tired. How far do we have left? 23 knots miles. Woo. And in this speed, we’re doing like steady 9 knots right now with a lot of currents. I love that. We’ve been sailing now for 14 hours. 14 hours feels longer. And Nora is being a true champ like always. I feel like these long sails is not ideal for her. And today has also been pretty rough. strong. girl. Yeah. Hello from Sherborg. Sherorg Sher. We came yesterday at around 5:30. Yeah. 6 something. After our longest sail yet. Yeah. 110 nautical miles. Yes. And our first night sail. Yeah. And I can say it was very dark when the moon went away and the sun hadn’t come up yet. Yeah. But we were very lucky because it was a full moon uh during the night. So we started at midnight. And we had a full moon and uh it was like a window of 1 and a half hour when the moon had gone down and the sun hadn’t come up yet and then it was pitch black. Yeah. But uh everything went well. Yes. We had an average speed of around 6 and 1/2 knots. Yeah. And uh so everything was according to the plan because we had to come here before the current Yeah. would turn. The plan was to make the sale uh in 18 hours and that was pretty much spot on. Today when we woke up we felt or yesterday too we felt like hung over like somebody had like punched us in the face. We were so tired. A headache. I was and uh I have to think about drinking a lot of water. Yeah. I don’t think we drank enough water yesterday. Oh, here’s another Swedish boat. The besties. Both of the dogs favorite toy is a plastic bottle. from. It’s some type of bicycle race and there’s a lot of people walking up this hill. Uh so let’s see what what this is all about. So I think the view is going to be pretty cool. Yeah, I hope so. And we will see I think we’ll see the whole ocean. Yeah, ocean where and the beaches of uh like Omaha and the D-Day beaches from here. Or they might they might be too far away, but we will at least see the ocean where all the place. something here. catching up. Too many Pink girl. We just left and uh we are on our way to the little edge that’s called capital a and um yeah we are a little bit nervous because this point is famous for its strong tidal currents and uh they can go up to 12 knots and it’s one of the strongest in Europe. So timing is key and uh we have a plan thereafter. So that’s why we are motor sailing right now because we have a headwind and we need to be there. We hope to be there before 2:00. Uh the sooner the better and uh the currents are supposed to be when we go around the point they will be in our benefit. They will be with us but I think they will be around five knots. And right now we are three boats uh really close to each other here. Another Swedish boat and then Livia our friends. Uh so we are all going there now. So that feels good at least. But since there is also a headwind and the current will be against the wind, that’s not very nice. So we will see how messy it is out there. And if it’s like completely super messy, we will go like a bit further out from the from the point. So the currents will not be as strong the further out we go. I think we will be all right. I will update you. We are getting closer to the cave. It’s very windy. We just tacked uh to get around the corner and uh everything is going fine. The we have a current against wind but the the ocean is not too bad. Um so all good for now. Uh we did attack a little bit earlier than the other boats. We were five boats uh cruising uh the same route. Now everybody has tacked also. They’re a little bit further out but I think we will be fine. The waves are becoming a little bit more spicy the further we go, but um we’re moving at 8 knots and soon we will change our course so we won’t sail as high against the wind and I think it will become more comfortable. All right, we are on our way into this harbor and the current is quite strong. So you see the boats are going in sideways. Okay, we have now cruised around Woo! For like an hour or so, we reduced our speed quite a lot because the current was so strong. So, we still drifted like 5 knots without any sails. The time is 7:00 in the evening, starting to be high tide again. So, that means that we can start entering the harbor inlet here. And uh I’m excited to get ashore because I’m very hungry. We have Livia in front of us and our friends and Sandra is on deck looking out for sandbanks. The reason why we have been reducing our speed and circulating around is because you can’t get into this marina or the inlet. It’s called sill. Uh so it’s some sort of wall that stops water from running out of the marina um when it’s low tide. And uh yeah, the tides here are pretty drastic. I think it’s like around 11 m tidle difference. We have been warned about this sail like that. Going around that corner cut the egg was supposed to be very very crazy. It was crazy. And it was crazy. At first we were like, is this what everybody was talking about? And then crazy started. Yeah, it was definitely manageable, but that was because we timed it here. It’s actually a sign saying how deep it is above the seal right now. And it says it’s 3.58 m deep. So we are totally fine. Yay! Bro, look. Now we will have to raft because the births that we booked pre- booked are not available. You’re the best.

Join us on our first night sail as we navigate the historic coast of Normandie, passing the D-Day beaches and battling some of the craziest tidal currents in Europe ⛵️🌊.

After being stuck in Boulogne-sur-Mer due to strong headwinds, we finally get a 48-hour window with perfect winds. We set off on an unforgettable journey, sailing 110 nautical miles south, experiencing our first night at sea, and witnessing the sunrise over the ocean horizon, a truly magical moment 🌞

During one of our sails, we encounter a close flyby from a French coastguard helicopter, and have no idea why! 🚁

We make stops in Dieppe and Cherbourg, and stumble into a classic French bicycle race. We also take on the powerful currents around Cap de la Hague, where timing the wind, waves, and tides is key to a smooth sail.

📍 Route: Boulogne-sur-Mer (France) to Barneville-De-Carteret (France)
⛵ Distance sailed: 1479 Nautical Miles
🧑‍✈️ Crew: Erik, Linn & Nora the dachshund

If you’re new to our channel, welcome! 🩵 We’re Linn and Erik, a Swedish couple in our late 20s who quit our jobs, rented out our apartment, and set off to sail from Stockholm to the Mediterranean together with our sausage dog. We started the journey in our unique 33-foot sailboat from 1980, which we sold in Kiel, and luckily, one week later we bought a new boat, a Bavaria 37 from 2000, more suited for the adventures ahead.

🔔 If you love real-life sailing stories and adventures where we learn as we go, don’t forget to subscribe and join us on the journey!
🎬 Check out our playlists: https://www.youtube.com/@SailAndDoxie/playlists
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