We arrived early at Calais port and were allocated a place on the11:40 P&O ferry rather than the 12:25. The wind was howling and the rain was nearly horizontal as we waiting for boarding. The good news was that we were directed to a position just one vehicle away from the exit ramp, so we were guaranteed a quick getaway when we arrived. The bad news was that we were in the open
and the van was going to be covered with salt spray. It also meant that we got rather wet just running the few metres to cover.
The journey was remarkably calm, the ferry stabilisers working very well despite the “moderate to rough” conditions that the captain warned us about. The ferry was 15 minutes late leaving but the captain, who obviously thought that he was an airline pilot, told us that he hoped to make up some of the delay during the voyage. Given the very strong winds, heavy seas and the age of the ship was extremely optimistic and we lost another 30 minutes by the time that we were tied up in Dover. We were overtaken by a Sea France ferry just before we got to Dover and that didn't help as we had to wait for it to manoeuvre in the harbour before we could enter. This meant that we arrived at the time that we would have expected should we have been on the 12:25.
I really appreciate how quiet the French roads are and the journey on the M20, M26, M25 and M3 only go to prove the point. The A303 is much more civilised normally but we were caught in the aftermath of a collision (fortunately, not serious) near Popham and were stopped for 20 minutes while the emergency services threaded their way between two lanes of vehicles.
The rest of the journey was straightforward and we parked up on our friends' drive (thank you once again Ann and Nick) at six o'clock. A minimum of unpacking was done and we walked round to a lovely warm house (thanks Ann).
Photos: This car seemed to have suffered very badly in the storms!
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