Day 13 - Thursday 15th July
I have no distinction between the Wednesday and Thursday - the long storm just seemed to go on forever. We had no windows in our cabin and although I managed to sleep it was for short spells of unknown length. I became very disorientated.
Daz got up at one point, but I wasn't sure if it was still Wednesday night and he'd gone for tea or if it was Thursday and he'd gone for breakfast. When he returned I asked him if it was Wednesday or Thursday and much to my relief he told me it was around 10am on Thursday. He grabbed his book and left me to it.
I decided to get up and try and eat something - maybe that would make me feel better. I went for breakfast and initially thought I did feel a little better. A lot of people were looking worse for wear including some of the staff. Once I got food in front of me though, I started to feel ill again. I forced what I could down and had a drink, then grabbed a load of fruit and left. On my way out I asked if it was OK to take all the fruit, and they said normally no, but considering the circumstances it was OK
I went up on to the deck and ate the fruit - I was definitely starting to feel a little better now. The boat was also moving considerably less. I found Daz and chilled out. We were meant to be docking at 5pm so not long now.
Then there was an announcement from the captain that because of the storm we were running a little late and were unlikely to get to Portsmouth before 9pm. To make matters worse the port at Portsmouth had given our birth to another ship so even if we arrived at 9pm we wouldn't be able to dock - the next free birth would be after midnight! People were not happy.
I rang the bed and breakfast we were booked into and told the guy the situation. He was very good about it and said he'd leave a key outside so we could let ourselves in whenever we turned up, but did ask we turned up for breakfast at 8am. I asked him when breakfast finished and he said 8am! I guess you had to be there or miss it!
The rest of the day was very long and boring. We had a nice meal in the steak house managing to use all our meal vouchers. The captain kept us informed through-out the day as to his negotiations to get us docked earlier and we could tell he was getting frustrated with the port authorities. We did arrive at Portsmouth at around 9pm but had to sit outside the harbour until just past midnight before we were allowed to dock.
I was like a zombie loading the bike. It was chucking it down in Portsmouth and quite cold. We only had a couple of miles to do to the Bed and Breakfast but they were very hard miles. We were both very relieved when we got into our room. I got all my wet gear off, collapsed into bed and passed out.