Day 12 - Wednesday 14th July
When I woke up it was still raining and for the first time this trip we had to pack up in the rain. It wasn't too bad as we knew we would definitely have a dry night on the boat. It wasn't cold - just very wet. We had to be at the docks for around 11am, but didn't have far to go so there was no rush, especially as we had filled up the day before.
We set off at around 8am. Daz put his waterproofs on and I decided to not bother as we were only doing around 50 miles. The roads were very slippery and my dark visor wasn't helping. Luckily I had been carrying my clear visor around with me for just such an occasion so I pulled in at my first opportunity and changed it. Daz wasn't so lucky and had to struggle on with his dark visor.
Once I'd changed my visor the riding become a lot easier and I started to settle into it a bit, Daz told me later that he found it very hard through-out the ride. For a brief period the rains eased and we had a patch of dry roads, but as we neared Bilbao the rain returned with a vengeance.
We got to the docks at around 10am, sat around for a bit, during which time I bought a new t-shirt. We boarded at 11:45. We secured our bikes, found our cabin and got changed and then went for some lunch. We had a baguette sandwich with crisps and a drink using our pre-paid meal vouchers again. As we were eating lunch the captain announced they were expecting some bad weather.
Sure enough once we cleared the harbour we were into choppy waters. These continued to get worse and worse so by 2pm I had to retire to the cabin as I didn't feel well. It didn't get any better.
For the next 20 hours we sailed through a force 9 storm with 8 meter swells. That is big. At one point I looked across at Daz, who must have come back to the cabin while I was asleep, laying in the next bed. As we went over the top of the wave he lifted off the bed, was more or less in free fall all the way down and then slammed back into the bed to go up the next wave where it repeated itself - for 20 HOURS!
I wasn't well - not well at all. I did manage to get up onto the helicopter deck at one point to film the waves which were coming up onto the helicopter deck! Unfortunately the movie doesn't do the waves justice at all. I just managed to get back to the cabin before I was ill again.
