Day 4 - Departure for Iceland

Hi everyone,

Thanks for tuning in again for Day 4’s blog.

I woke up early to get myself all packed for the ferry. I had another bad night, the ground is rock solid with the heat wave across Europe and my rollmat isn’t giving me much protection. As per yesterday, I set my water boiling for porridge and a cuppa while I packed the tent away and got the bike sorted.

Then it was off to the port to catch the ship. There was a lot of queueing. Firstly to get checked in. Then to get onboard the ferry. Then to get onto the upper deck, then to wait for a space to put the bike it. During these waits I did my bit for Brexit negotiations  chatting to other bikers from Italy, Germany, and Denmark, all heading for Iceland too. 

When I final got my space on the ferry I was thrown some straps by the deck hands and told to strap down my bike. Not what the shipping company had advertised but I got on with it anyway. It took me a good 10 mins to work the straps out and get my bike secure. I also had to take one of my side boxes off in order to get into the bike as I’d been packed so tightly alongside other bikes. I then ended up on the car deck for another 30 minutes helping out a German biker get this bike sorted. Even though neither of us spoke each other’s language enough to actually communicate, we did it by hand jestutures and a lot of ‘ya’ and ‘nein’. 

I then had the joy of finding my shared cabin. I can only describe it as a set of bunk beds with a thin strip of flooring between them.. turns out I am sharing with the two Romanian chaps I met on the road yesterday and some other random chap. 

With 48 hours in the ship I’ve had a lot of time to kill. I’ve made some new friends including Don, a US biker and fellow Iron Butt’er doing a 4-month tour of Europe, an Icelandic couple who celebrated England’s football win with me and have offers me a room when I visit Reykjavík, and also a few other random biker types. 

I’ve also read 100 pages of my book, tucked into a Scandinavian lunch, and been for a swim in the onboarding ‘swimming pool’ / death trap which, due to sea state 3 water outside, was a 20ft wave machine.  

And as I write this blog I’m listening to the onboard musician play some Irish folk songs while having a coke.. just another 36 hours to go 😔

Thanks or tuning in. 

More updates to follow

Ride safe,