I doubt there were many other passengers looking forward to a 24 hour ferry journey as much as we were?
Once boarded and the cabin located I quickly got out of the cycling gear and into the shower. Washed the bib shorts as they would be required at the other end, put on one of my favourite T-shirts in honour of Stephen Watters and headed out to explore the vessel. Immediately I bumped into Allan McLaughlin and we found the bar without much effort.
It is very alien to me to sit and drink 0% beer. As a Scotsman and worse still a travelling Scotsman I have this craving for alcohol. It must be in the genes? I was informed on more than one occasion that “one pint won’t do any harm”. That may be true but neither will it do any good and it certainly won’t aid the recovery process.
I was strong and after 3 x small non alcoholic beers and swapping a few stories with my new friends I made my excuses and went for an early dinner.
Allan joined me and we had a nice quiet meal in the self service restaurant, the food was much better than I imagined it would be, in fact it was probably the best I’ve eaten so far on this trip. I am very impressed with the boat, it’s almost like a low budget cruise ship or could even be described as a luxury ferry. We talked about the trip and agreed on various things like how good our support team are Greenrock . The value of bringing Jill McLaggan (massages) with us and basically the enormity of whole thing.
Dinner was interrupted by a fellow passenger asking for a photo of my T-shirt, this would happen again later and again in the morning. Like I said, it is one of my favourites.
After dinner Allan and I had the same idea, get the computers out and answer some emails etc. I started to do my Blog but the Wi-Fi was terrible. I found myself dosing off waiting for the intermittent connection so gave up and went to bed. I can write the Blog tomorrow I thought but I probably won’t be able to post anything until we reach Santander.
I went out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow and never stirred. 09.30h I woke up after sleeping for 12 hours straight. That’s a new record for me (sober). The plan was breakfast then massage but Jill was only doing neck and shoulder stuff on the boat and doing the legs at the hotel this evening so I had a light breakfast and started working offline on the computer.
Before I knew where I was it was lunchtime and I was starving. A big 3 course lunch was devoured and a walk up on deck was taken. It was a short walk as the weather was foul. We were then informed of a 15 min delay because of the weather so wouldn't be arriving until 18.30h local time.
Upon arrival in Santander we dressed again for cycling, I found Grace happy and content that none of the greasy machines in the car deck had molested her. Would hate to think that in 9 months time I would be the father of a little motor bike!
Now that I was back on Spanish soil I could connect with the world again and see all the wonderful messages of support and kind words. They are more welcome than you could ever know. Only half a job is done however and I must stay focused. Total donations have now topped £37k which is incredible and makes it all worthwhile.
Also we received another message from Stephen Watters that he was in recovery and doing well. Here is the T-shirt I wore in his honour.
What should have been a short cycle to the hotel and my much needed leg massage turned out to be a long winded cycle in the rain. The pin on google maps for the hotel was inexplicably placed 4.4 Km from where it should have been. Chaos ensued and we ended up seeing much more of Santander than we were supposed to.
Eventually we got to the hotel around 20.00h and stored the bikes.
Then after check in and on the way to the rooms I got stuck in the lift with Ruairi, Shane, Steven & David,
Fortunately as David suffers from claustrophobia we were rescued in under 15 mins.
With 7 more long rides to Lisbon and my Blog now up to date ............. thank you for reading & sharing, buenos noches!