Ferry & Beyond!

It’s now 4am Tuesday, in 12 hours time I’ll hopefully be at my hotel in Tordesillas, 400 miles north of Huelva. But life is in the now, and now there’s nothing more for it than to make a cup of tea, because we all know that a good English cuppa makes things better.

The first ten hours of the crossing were fine, the next ten were a bit choppy, the next ten were sick bag distribution time, damage limitation in the restaurant and stopping the waves from seeping under the side sliding doors in the public areas. By 4am it was make a cup of tea time coz there had been no chance of sleeping since midnight, despite me putting my motorcycle earplugs in to muffle the cacophony of ship and wave related noises! Yes there are creaks in the cabin like it’s some kind of galleon, there are times when it feels like I’m going to slide up the bed, down the bed, sink into the bed, take off from the bed or just fall out! The shuddering of the cabin is so random as not to help sleep, as I wait for the next big bang and shake. But now there’s a hollow banging of metal somewhere, I hope it isn’t somebody trapped?

Now I think of the other passengers, the poor souls who are not having a cup of tea to make things better, those who are struggling a lot more than I am with this crossing. But even I’ll be glad when we make land, although if it’s stormy across the appropriately named BoB (Bay of Biscay) I’ll be tempted to keep riding up through France!

I suspected that when we got somewhere west of the Battle of Trafalgar site, the waters may be a bit more protected. I think that has turned out to be the case as the last two hours were considerably quieter, unless it was just that cup of tea?

Safely on (wet) Land

I arrived at my hotel at Tordesillas at 4.30pm, so just over the twelve hours since my very early morning cuppa. It is warm and sunny, but it’s the first ‘warm’ and ‘sunny’ I’ve experienced today.

395 miles of the 400 that I’ve done have been cold, wet and windy, and riding towards Seville it was dark and busy. All in all 395 miles of all the things I dislike about motorcycling, which has me wondering why I’m actually doing it at all!

Time now to get out in the sun and hopefully post some better photos later……