Ferry Alderney - Dielette

Alderney – Dielette with Manche Iles Express

This route links Alderney with Dielette, operated by Manche Iles Express. The two ferry terminals are about 30 kilometres (16 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.

Launched in 2005 by the département of La Manche, Manche Iles Express links Granville, Barneville-Carteret and Diélette with Jersey, Guernsey, Sark and Alderney on two ferries owned by the département. Sailings were suspended in 2021, resumed in 2022 and are now supported by the islands too.

Alderney

Alderney is the northernmost of the Channel Islands, barely three miles long, and it packs in more quirks than places ten times its size. The Alderney Railway, the only working railway in the Channel Islands, runs on summer Saturdays between Braye and Mannez Lighthouse in carriages that once served the London Underground's Northern line. Offshore, the rock stacks of Les Étacs hold nearly 6,000 pairs of gannets, about two per cent of the world population, and boat trips run out to see them. On land the island is known for its blonde hedgehogs, pale animals found almost nowhere else, which local legend traces to a few pets bought at Harrods. Fort Clonque, a Victorian fortress reached by a tidal causeway, completes a small island that is an easy weekend from either Guernsey or the Cotentin coast.

Dielette

The little harbour of Diélette looks sleepy, but beneath it lies one of the oddest industrial stories in Normandy. From 1877 until 1962 an iron mine worked ore from beneath the sea here, with shafts 150 metres deep and galleries running out under the Channel, and the miners came from Italy, Spain and Poland as well as Normandy. Before the iron, the cliffs were quarried for Flamanville granite, which went into Cherbourg's harbour works and into the Pont Neuf and the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Today the headland is dominated by the Flamanville nuclear power station, built partly on land reclaimed from the sea on the site of the old mine. The coast itself is still wild: the Cap de Flamanville, a short walk away, has cliffs rising to about 90 metres, and in summer a high-speed passenger ferry leaves Diélette for Alderney and Guernsey.