How to survive crossing the Bay of Biscay in a force 7/8 gale?

1) Make sure the boat you’re on is very large.

2) Take Dramamine.

That’s it, it’s really that simple.

Our crossing on the Brittany Ferries Galicia has been pretty splendid. 5 Dramamine tablets between us, I’m writing this blog with about 70 miles or so to Santander, with the boat still pretty rolly polly, and we’ve both properly got our sea legs. Can’t say that’s the same for some of our fellow passengers.

As you’ll have seen from the last blog we were expecting rough weather and it certainly didn’t disappoint as you can see from the video below.

Some of the peaks and troughs were pretty big, but Galicia is a monster and just smashes through them. That being said the ship is pretty mobile, up and down and side to side. Walking around, if you’ve not done it, is an odd sensation, one minute you feel gravity has increased hugely and you feel the weight of a baby elephant, the next the opposite and you feel you could float on air.

I was expecting the environment on board to be poor, not to put too fine a point on it, people throwing up all over the place, a sea of sick everywhere and more than a whiff of the misery of those not coping well with the conditions. Not so, it’s been all peace and calm with no visible signs of unpleasantness at all. In fact I was thinking either all the passengers were seasoned mariners or all taking Dramamine like us. That is until Ellison pointed out that in the Commodore’s Lounge (£35 each, hot breakfast, lunch, snacks and regular free glasses of wine – to be recommended) when we boarded there were 4 large piles of sick bags which by late afternoon had diminished to a small handful. Clearly some people are having a bad tome of it.

This morning the sky is brightening and we’re looking forward to our first foray into Spain and the drive to Porto. Our chums are already on the 6.30 train from Albufeira and will be there when we arrive. Just need to stock on duty free Gin (the ONLY benefit I’ve seen of leaving the EU) and some replacement headlamp beam deflectors as the ones I carefully stuck on in MK fell off before we got to Newbury!

But far to go, we can see land, and we're getting quite excited.

I leave you with the swivel chairs in the lounge, which Ellison was much enjoying and as I approached with a tray full of supplies, she swivelled around and said 'Ah Mr Bond, I've been expecting you'.

Saude!