Friday, February 10, 2006

Into the wind...

...a north-north-westerly of up to force 7, in fact, and as the captain of the Hrossey warned, there was "a bit of a swell".
Last night's trip north from Aberdeen was the 14-and-a-half-hour special via Orkney, leaving Aberdeen at 5.00pm and arriving in Lerwick at 7.30am. The ferry gets into Kirkwall at around 11.30pm, which means, if you're asleep, that you're woken up by immense bangings and crashings from the car deck, as the chains holding down the freight containers are unleashed.
Despite some really violent slamming (up and down, rather than side to side) movement, I had been asleep since 7.00pm, thanks to Phenergan, for the first time unmixed with alcohol. That may account for today's lack of ultra-hangover, but didn't stop me waking up in Orkney. Never mind, I was asleep again in minutes, dreaming that we arrived late in Shetland, and I ate porridge for breakfast. Neither of which turned out to be true.
The worst of it is, it was a stunning, calm morning in Shetland, and when I got home, nobody had any sympathy for me having survived a hideous night on the boat. Or believed it had happened. I did not, of course, mention being unconscious. Maybe I dreamt the whole thing. Actually Nils, who works on the car deck, told me it had been much worse for the crew, whose cabins are in the ship's bow. I can't imagine what it's like in serious weather, like the hurricane force winds I once found myself at sea in, courtesy of P&O. Them were the days!
Why is this computer screen swaying from side to side?

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