Thursday 6th June – Lay Over Aldernay
Marina Costs. 2 x nights @£25 per night. £50.
We both slept well and late into the morning for us. We had decided that we would subsidise the local economy and use the water taxi rather than blow up the dinghy. At £3 per person each this was not a great extravagance. After breakfast we went ashore as we had been invited for coffee with the President of Alderney – William Tate – in his offices. The connection was 30th Signal Regiment where I was CO. During my time we donated a set of wrought iron gates in November 2000 to the Church of St Anne to replace the ones taken by the Nazis during the occupation. Each year the President of Alderney together with the Captain of HMS Alderney are invited to the Officers mess at the Regiment for a formal dinner. A mighty night it is too!
The discussion with William was instructive. Both Alderney and Guernsey face a huge black hole in their budgets mainly driven by the need to pay for social care and ambulances. Alderney has 35% of the population that is over retirement age and this is a major cost burden on the Island. Looming is the need to find £26m to resurface the airport which is vital to the survival of the Island. Alderney is a part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey who in general resent paying for services to be delivered to those that live on Alderney. There are no easy solutions. The one concession they got from the UK government was that Guernsey took responsibility for the harbour wall in Alderney and this was considered their contribution to defence!
On our way to the President’s office we had stopped off at the Tourist Information – probably one of the most helpful centres I had been in. Upon entering we were immediately offered and when we asked for a selection of walks – advice, pamphlets and maps were produced. Having spoken with William we now understood that jobs like the Tourist Office, Lifeboat, Water Taxi, Home Help were part of an informal social contract on the Island that everyone who could would contribute to the running of the Islands services.
We had a delightful walk along Longis Road to the Roman Fort where we sat on a bench overlooking a golden sandy beach backed by an anti-tank wall as a wind shelter and looking across to a large German fortification. This was the 6th June – 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was quite poignant sitting there contemplating what was happening all those years ago. Further on was the Russian German War Graves Commission. There were no names and no records of these individuals who had died as slave workers building the Atlantic Wall.
Having walked along the edge of another wonderful beach – Braye bay we stopped for a drink before going back to the boat for supper.
We ate early as we had been invited to go to a lighting of the beacon ceremony to mark D-Day. Amongst the crowd were a small group of young people from NW England who had sold their homes, cars, bikes and other possessions to fund purchasing a boat to sail around the world. They were quite inspirational and I signed up to their YouTube Channel – Outside Comfort Zone – but yet to ‘buy them a coffee’. It was great to see such enthusiasm for a project. None were sailors – they were learning as they went.
Another early night before leaving for St Peter Port on the morning tide.
Purrfect Tale 