‘Ferry’ Excitement

Our two month trip in our Motorhome (aka The Beast) taking in Spain, Portugal and France started with us taking a Brittany Ferry from Portsmouth to Santander in northern Spain. We chose the weekend after Easter, thinking it would be quieter but as we joined the long queue we realised that we’d actually picked quite a busy Saturday.

I also hadn’t realised that when you drive on to the ferry you have to turn around and reverse into your parking space so that your facing the right way to drive straight off. I’m not very good at reversing the Beast at the best of times but the Spanish traffic controller was very patient and obviously very experienced at dealing with rubbish drivers. I got there in the end!

Our cabin was on the top floor, floor 10. Where the reading lounge was situated. The restaurants were on floors 9 and 8. The cabin was quite spacious, but then we had paid an extra £200 for it. It had two small single beds, a desk, a couple of comfy armchairs and table and a TV, which didn’t work. When we found a list of DVDs which could be loaned from the Information desk we realised that you could only watch DVDs on it. Until about 12 hrs in and I switched on the TV again out of boredom and flicked through the channels. It was only Channel 1 that didn’t work and came up with ‘no ariel’ message, the other couple of dozen channels were fine! Grrrr.

So we settled down, made a cup of coffee and watched Portsmouth slip slowly into the distance, it was only as we passed the Isle of Wight we noticed the swell on the sea begin to rise and fall quite considerably and only then did we remember how the weatherman had been going on about high winds and the remnants of some storm hitting the U.K. this weekend on the TV the previous night. Holey moley, what were we in for?

About an hour into our trip the announcement came over the tannoy that the Captain was banning anyone from going out on deck. Half an hour later the bing bongs sounded again, this time to suggest that people kept to their cabins or if they did walk about to be very careful and to be especially careful when using the bathroom. It was going to be a long 28 hour journey! I began to get concerned when the waves were crashing into our window as we were on the 10th level. All I could hope is that the Beastie was ok down in the bowels of the ship.

We managed to stagger our way to the bar and restaurant but it was hard work and meant having to hang onto the hand rails wherever possible, cos if you let go you’d end up staggering backwards for a few feet before the ship lurched the other way pushing you forward a couple of yards. Some people tried to time it so they only walked forward, with tiny little running steps, on the rise and hung on for dear life as it dipped. It took more time but you were more liable to get where you wanted to. It looked like everyone on board was totally p***ed out of their heads. So funny. We bought a small bottle of wine each, managed to stagger to a seat, put the glass on the table and was about to pour when another lurch sent the glass flying off the table and through the air to crash on the carpet. The Steward was not amused. We ended up drinking straight out of the bottle! The restaurant was open but the smell of cabbage made me feel queasy so we went back to our cabin.

Well we survived the crossing. The wind calmed down after the first 12 hours and by the time we cruised into Santander harbour the sea was almost and flat, the sun was out and the sky was blue. A perfect start to the holiday.

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