21st June - Bay of Biscay

We're on the ferry on the way home. It's a pretty dismal place. Nicki described it rather accurately as like Butlin's, Saga and Fatfighters all rolled into one. We watched an enormous couple wobbling across the café with two cakes each. Causality eat your heart out.

Yesterday's highlight for me was dinner, for which we went to the buffet, but the ship was porpoising quite a bit in the swell, so Nicki lasted for precisely one bread roll before retiring to our cabin, rather whiter than when she went upstairs. The view from the restaurant was over the bows, so periodically everybody rushed to the window to look at dolphins leaping out of the water. Nicki was on deck when they announced a dead whale floating past, but we've not seen a live one.

I went to update the Book of the Blog with all our photos, but after a while, Microsoft Word crapped out and won't edit the file because it's got too big. I'm hoping it'll work on the trusty Mac at home, otherwise I'll have to start again, which would be most frustrating as it was really coming along. In the evening I watched the first half of the England match, then we listened to the rest on the in-cabin radio.

Last night our cabin was 30°, despite the heater setting being turned right down. They sent out a repair man who made it better for a while, but then it packed in again. I tried a shower but there was no cold water. A bit annoying bearing in mind the ferry's not exactly cheap. In the end they moved us to another cabin, regrettably not upgrading us in the process. We both slept better than we have for ages.

Right now we're just counting the hours until we arrive. According to the captain we're about to join the eastbound shipping lane to enter the Channel.