On Saturday 6th July Vagn and I were going to the Alderney island, the smallest one of the Channel Islands. We filed a flight plan, and got a confirmation that it was approved.
As soon as we started the engine, we could hear on the radio that a large group of British aircraft was on approach. That was very unfortunate; the radio communication was so busy – it was impossible to get through. The tower asked us to wait, and we shut down the engine, but stayed on the frequency. The British aircraft were often coming on final too close to each other, and had to do a go around, sometimes twice!
We postponed our flight plan three times! We don’t know how many British aircraft they were; 30 or 40 or maybe more? They just kept calling. Finally after 1 hour and 30 minutes it was possible to get through, and I informed the tower that we could take off from the middle of the runway (as we didn’t need more than 200 metres), right from the taxiway, and to expedite quickly. We got permission to taxi to the holding point. After half an hour more, we were cleared to take off from the middle of the runway. What a release it was!
We sent our warm thoughts to the city of Cherbourg on our way, where we spent two wonderful days:
Then next challenge – our flight plan couldn’t be found. We were flying into a country outside EU, i.e. a flight plan was mandatory. The flight from Cherbourg to Alderney is a short one; we were asked to change frequencies all the time – all of them were looking for our flight plan, and couldn’t find it. We wondered about our fate.
Meanwhile, we were transferred to the Jersey Control, and got permission to continue to the Alderney. Our flight plan was never found. We thought the Jersey approach had to create, open and close a new one, so that we complied with the regulations. And soon the island of Alderney was in sight:
Landing on runway 26:
Refuelling; very professional:
I lost somewhere a small screw of my GoPro, and asked the man who did the refuelling whether I could buy it on the island. He gave me one of his own GoPro screws – it was very kind of him.
Customs area at the Alderney airport:
We went to the town of St. Anna – the only one on the island, where we had an agreement for renting of two bikes in a bike shop. Coming by a bank, I got some cash. It wasn’t exactly British Pounds – they were the pounds of Guernsey!
I wondered whether I ever would be able to exchange them back to euro… In fact, cash wasn’t necessary – credit cards were accepted almost everywhere. On our last day on the island I went to the same bank, but they couldn’t exchange the Guernsey pounds because they don’t hold any other currency… They recommended to go to the post office and to exchange to the British pound which I did.
We got the bikes, and continued to our campsite on the Saye Bay, on the other side of the island. Stop at Braye Beach for lunch with the view:
We had lunch at The Moorings – they had some great fish:
A short walk around, shopping, and we found a nice cafe for a coffee and ice-cream break with even a better view:
It was time to continue; we enjoyed beautiful landscapes on our way:
The Saye campsite is surrounded by high dunes; it is very quiet place. At the time of our stay, there were only few guests there. After pitching our tent, we climbed up the dunes, and what a view we had! Down there, a private secluded white sand beach awaited us!
It was wonderful to go for a short swim! The water was very clean (and cold!):
In the evening, we watched a sunset from the dunes:
