Day 1 - Setting Sail

I can take no credit in loading up Pearl, our pearlescent red Toyota CH-R, but at 5.30pm we left home & drove to Portsmouth International Ferry Terminal for our 9.30pm departure to Bilbao. We only needed to arrive an hour early, but instead we arrived 3 hours early.

It was a straight forward process to board, then we lugged 4 rucksacks, a handbag……..oh & a bag stuffed full of wine & some food to our cabin. This was not without incident in the lift, when an old up himself tw*t got in the lift and started making what he thought were funny inane comments & looking round for approval. He was certainly annoying us. When the lift went down instead of up, Jackie inexplicably leant across & pressed another button for a floor no one wanted to go to. Tw*t snapped at Jackie shouting “Don’t do that”. Jackie told him not to talk to her like that, but he argued back, so I waded in & we both gave him both barrels. It wasn’t pretty.

We dumped our rucksacks in our cabin, no. 7137 & rushed to the top deck with our wine and glasses for pre-departure drinks. At 9.30pm we set sail passing several warships, including the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Victory & Spinnaker Tower. We remained out on deck until Portsmouth was just a distant glow, then returned to our cabin for an early night.

Song of the Day : Sail Away by David Gray.Read more