Ferry Sark - Guernsey

Sark – Guernsey with Isle of Sark Shipping

This route links Sark with Guernsey, operated by Isle of Sark Shipping. The two ferry terminals are about 14 kilometres (8 nautical miles) apart in a straight line. Use the search engine above for current timetables and fares, or use the Direct Ferries button at the top of the page to compare the sailings.

The Isle of Sark Shipping Company is owned by the island itself and, since 1969, has been the only operator of the year-round passenger and freight service between Guernsey and Sark. The nine-mile crossing takes 35 to 50 minutes, and about 50,000 return passengers use it each year.

Sark

Sark has no cars and no street lighting, but its history is anything but sleepy. Cornish miners came in the 1830s to dig for silver in the cliffs of Little Sark, and the ruins of the mines can still be seen at Port Gorey. In October 1942 a dozen British commandos landed in the dark below the Hog's Back, took a German prisoner and set off a chain of events that is believed to have contributed to Hitler's Commando Order; the raid is still remembered on the island. Today most visitors come for the walking. La Coupée, the narrow ridge joining Great and Little Sark, stands about 80 metres above the sea. Railings were fitted in 1900, and before then children are said to have crawled across on their hands and knees when the wind was strong. Bicycles and horse-drawn carriages are the main ways to get around.

Guernsey

Guernsey is an island of small, specific delights. The Little Chapel at Les Vauxbelets, begun by Brother Déodat in 1914, is a miniature cathedral covered in pebbles, seashells and fragments of broken china, and is said to be among the smallest chapels in the world. The island's name lives on in clothing, the guernsey jumper once knitted for its fishermen, and in the golden-milk Guernsey cow. More recently it became the setting for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the 2008 novel and 2018 film about life after the wartime Occupation. From St Peter Port, boats leave for neighbouring Herm and Sark, so the harbour makes a natural base for island-hopping.