Chapter 8: On the High Seas

There's a joke that goes, "what's a pirates favourite letter?". Most people answer with a hearty "Rrrrrrr". But in a classic case of misdirection the answer is actually "the c". Get it? Well when I got out on deck the next morning all I could see was the sea, and it would be like that for the rest of the day. Speaking of pirates, there were quite a few eye patches needed for some of the bleary eyes on the passengers, who were suffering from hangovers and sea sickness in equal measure. I'm usually quite good on boats, but must admit even I found it a rough crossing.

I was all at sea.

After looking at the sea for a while, I went for breakfast in the café. You could tell the British people who were all going for bacon and eggs, and the Europeans who went for the continental breakfast. My breakfast of cereal, toast and eggs, possibly put me somewhere in the middle of the North Sea culturally!

I'm not a full English.

When breakfast was over I took a tour around the ship. It was massive, and felt more like a hotel than a boat (except when it rocked back and forth on the waves). There wasn't much to do, as the duty free shop wasn't open yet, nor was the bar, so I returned to my cabin. I had planned to do a bit of pre-reading for my course, but the boat WIFI was like using dialup in the 1990s. I flicked on the TV instead. Surprisingly they had UK stations. So I spent most of the day watching ITV4 daytime classic shows such as the Professionals, Sherlock Holmes and the Saint.

No masking tape on the Saint's car!

By evening I was ready for food, so went along to the restaurant for dinner. Apparently passengers had to reserve a table for dinner (very posh), so I made a reservation for the next sitting at 7pm. I had about 45 minutes to kill, so I went into the duty free shop. I found a road map of Spain there. Considering my troubles  with directions and sat nav so far, I thought it was a prudent investment. I also got some colouring pens to shade in my route. I was now all sorted! Dropping my purchases back in my cabin, I headed along to the restaurant for dinner. I was particularly looking forward to the fish and chips I had seen on the menu outside the restaurant, as the rest of the food there seemed to be extremely rich and expensive French food (it being a French run ferry). When I was given a menu there was no fish and chips, and when I asked, it wasn't available. So I decided to give the French food a miss, and go up to the café upstairs where I got a burger instead. No need for reservations there!
Exactly what I needed.

The bar was now heating up with a quiz, and I think they had Karaoke planned for later. I had more important things to do though. I went back to my room and studied my map, making sure I knew every inch of road between Bilbao and Gibraltar. I was determined there would be no more disasters!

I spent much of the day and evening in my cabin.

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