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Ferry land - which ferries have you taken and which do you wish to take before Charon rows you across the Styx.

Don’t condemn me for this.
Back when I was a student I went out with a young woman from Torquay. We lived in London, and she had a car!
She was very nice, and very sweet innocent and trusting.
We got the Woolwich ferry and I persuaded her that the dividing line between the London Borough of Newham and the London Borough of Greenwich was down the middle of the Thames, and both boroughs were in dispute about funding the ferry, so the ferries would have to meet mid river and the vehicles transfer from one to the other. Extra persuasion came from seeing each ferry taking off from their side of the river at the same time.
Bless her she believed me until she saw the two ferries pass each other as they crossed.
 
Possibly my most outstanding ferry was this beautiful 1920s ship. When I was very young and by which time it had been put on to excursion duty from Oban for its final years in service. Cruising to Staffa and Iona, where you were properly lightered ashore.

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I still remember the soup moving to and fro in the plate in its grand dining room in pretty heavy seas and watching a medical evacuation by small boat, with the patient from a tiny, now completely uninhabited island winched on board in heavy seas, before the two very sturdy boatmen rowed themselves back to the island.

:eek:
 
The worst one I ever did was Calais to Dover in a howling gale. We couldn't dock for hours and hours as the weather was so bad so we were on the bloody thing for six hours or something.
This happened to me too, sometime in the mid-70s I guess. I wonder if ships were worse or weather prediction's better. Or we were on the same boat :hmm:


I love a ferry. I think most of the ones I've been on have been mentioned. I go from Portsmouth - France or Portsmouth - Spain at least once a year. Always means it's the start of the holiday; on the boat; dog in the kennel; bags in the cabin; lagers and 'entertainment' in the bar :beer::oldthumbsup: Then a lovely swaying kip with no wake up (to Spain) or a disgusting non-switchoffable, ever increasing volume alarm at absolute bastard o clock (to France). But then you're on holiday so it doesn't matter.

Used to go from Dover/Folkestone to France every year in the mid-70s to mid-80s, ("roll/-on/roll-off/rollover").

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There are a couple of little ones fairly local to me: the Hythe Ferry (sadly not currently running due to issues with the pontoon). Has an added bonus: Arriving at Hythe Pier, board the World's Oldest Pier Train (official Guinness World Record) and after the short ride of 640 metres (2,100 feet) you will have travelled along one of the ten longest piers in the British Isles :cool:

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Also the Hamble - Warsash ferries - "the pink ladies":


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Other great ferries I have loved:

La Ceiba - Utila, Honduras - saw flying fish!
Panajachel - San Pedro, Guatemala (I think Voley's done this one?)
 
One thing I used to love about car ferries was the intoxicating smell of diesel on the vehicle decks. And the blokes in their high vis overalls who’d tell you when to stop so your bumper was about an inch from the car in front. And whether or not you’d get lucky and be at the front or back of a deck to get off the other side.

And in the queue at the port before driving on to the ferry Dad was doing something or other with the headlights; putting some sort of yellow sticker on them as perhaps they used different colours in France.

One year, we overslept. We were meant to leave at 0600 from SE London for a ferry from Portsmouth to Brittany. The car would have been packed the night before so we just had to wake up and get in the car.

Anyway I woke up about 0700 and went to ask my parents why we hadn’t gone on holiday!

Apparently there was a lot of swearing from Dad - long car journeys were where I learned bad language - and we jumped in the car, apparently drove very fast (as fast as you could go in a Renault 5 anyway and almost certainly over the speed limit!) on a newly opened M25 (I think some sections were open by then ) and then I guess the A3 to get to the port

The way Mum told the story, we basically drove onto the ferry pretty much as it was leaving the port, the doors closing immediately behind us.

So perhaps this was pre Townsend thoresen which was March 1987 so I reckon summer 1986, I would have been 4 years old, turning 5 in November? This tale was always related by Mum and Dad in the vein of “wasn’t Elpenor so precociously clever at his young age to tell the time and recognise that we were late and save the holiday” so I guess I must have been quite young?
 
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This guy, Steve Marsh has lots of great ferry videos:


:)
 
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Panajachel - San Pedro, Guatemala (I think Voley's done this one?)

I've done that but in reverse. Certainly a lot calmer than the 'taxi' we got to San Pedro, which was a mini bus with just us two and one pissed off driver who decided to do the whole thing at maximum speed. Including all those downhill switchbacks into San Pedro.
 
Done portsmouth bilboa twice as work thing. There was a massive bronze? sveltre painted?? steel? bull in the middle of the ship, Climbed on it at silly oclock when everyone else was asleep or vomiting.

Second run was stormy enough to throw us out of our beds, chuffed to find my stomach is complete iron and my ability to walk with the roll comes v quick. Takes ages to stop walking like that once on land.
 
Don’t condemn me for this.
Back when I was a student I went out with a young woman from Torquay. We lived in London, and she had a car!
She was very nice, and very sweet innocent and trusting.
We got the Woolwich ferry and I persuaded her that the dividing line between the London Borough of Newham and the London Borough of Greenwich was down the middle of the Thames, and both boroughs were in dispute about funding the ferry, so the ferries would have to meet mid river and the vehicles transfer from one to the other. Extra persuasion came from seeing each ferry taking off from their side of the river at the same time.
Bless her she believed me until she saw the two ferries pass each other as they crossed.
There's one I had completely forgotten about to add to my list. Lol at the story!
 
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Done portsmouth bilboa twice as work thing. There was a massive bronze? sveltre painted?? steel? bull in the middle of the ship, Climbed on it at silly oclock when everyone else was asleep or vomiting.

Second run was stormy enough to throw us out of our beds, chuffed to find my stomach is complete iron and my ability to walk with the roll comes v quick. Takes ages to stop walking like that once on land.
The thought of that ferry route and the Santander one has always scared the shit out of me re the weather and the sea. Bay of Biscay on a boat, just say no.
 
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