Ferry Sark - Granville

Sark – Granville with Manche Iles Express

This route links Sark with Granville, operated by Manche Iles Express. The two ferry terminals are about 85 kilometres (46 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.

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.

Granville

Granville lives by the tide. The range in the bay can exceed 13 metres, so boats sit on the mud at low water and the harbour changes character within hours. The Chausey islands, a granite archipelago a short boat trip offshore, multiply from a handful of islands into hundreds of rocks and islets when the sea goes out. In November 1793 the walled Haute Ville was attacked by the royalist Vendée army during its long march north; the town held, and the failure to take a port where help from Britain might have landed is often seen as the beginning of the end for the rebellion. Mont-Saint-Michel and the bay of the same name are about an hour's drive away, and in summer boats run from Granville to Jersey and Chausey.