From Laredo to Bilbao Port in the rain

Tuesday 10th September
I made it! I am on the ferry, now just less than one hour into our voyage and we’re definitely swaying.
Last night was the usual sleeping and dreaming and waking but the alarm on my watch, followed shortly by my phone went off when it was still dark and felt like the middle of the night, just after 7 and with the aid of my trusty head torch I was packed up and ready to ride out as I heard the campsite gate being opened just before 8. But it was dark and raining on the road and really difficult to see, out of town and up onto the motorway for a 35 minute journey to the port just this side of Bilbao.
Laredo to Bilbao in the rain at EveryTrail

It was difficult to find the way to the boat, as the whole portside area was under an inch of water so all the road markings were invisible and I rode around in and out of cones and lanes to finally get to the route to get into the Brittany Ferries queues. Phew. Please take queue number 43, said the woman in the booth. By this time I was soaked. I joined a queue of riderless bikes and wondered what shelter everyone had found. A lorry driver called to me that all the other bike riders were sheltering in the café and I walked over and squeezed into a small bus shelter like space already full and a half dozen or so bikers came before we got the call ‘now the motos’. Someone there was sharing his experience of travelling the middle East: ‘I went to Dubai airport once. I thought I was at a shepherd’s convention’. Much laughter. Interesting. When you are new to a group or on the edges its always the vocal members that you notice and assume they stand for the whole.
Driving on involved a steep decline down to the very bottom deck, which with the wet weather, caused widespread fear as I could tell from the rider in front of me and the comments of others. I stayed to watch Bertha get tied down then managed to get into my cabin just after it had been cleaned, saving waiting around in wet clothes.
After showering (with the ship’s many times laundered and barely there towels) I made straight to the restaurant and watched from the window as the last trucks drove on down below and we moved away, diagonally it seemed, from the quay. A lone remaining worker in bright orange stayed in the rain to see the boat leave, then got into his van and drove off. All the immigration police had already left a good half an hour before.
At the port Bilbao, Brittany Ferries

I ordered full breakfast in French (its ‘full breakfast’ but to be said in a slightly artificial way). I normally avoid all that but after a fortnight of crouching over a stove eating various varieties of pasta (they were all delicious – I am not complaining) I was not going to skimp on comforts for this 24 hours.
So now in my rather swaying cabin (I have a porthole this time), with the heating turned up and my clothes hanging on anything available to dry, I am going to start looking at some documents for the university’s Research Excellence Framework. I’m hoping the 130 mile ride back up to Cambridge tomorrow morning is dry.

Pictures so far are here.