A tale of two ferries...

We had a lovely day out today - we went over to Pier Island near Barrow in Furness. The ferry journey out was a bit of an adventure though! We got on the white ferry, which took us most of the way to the island then stopped to pick up some guys on a speedboat. When the skipper tried to continue, the boat wouldn't move... He looked under the engine hatch and discovered the drive shaft for the propellor had broken...

After some quick mobile phone calls, the guys on the sppedboat took our skipper over to another ferry moored nearby (the red one). They got it started, and headed in our direction, but something went wrong on that boat too. So we sat (with no crew on board) watching as the other boat drifted off with three people scratching their heads and looking into the engine. Eventually they started poking the engine with a big stick, and got the problem fixed.

They came back, transferred us all over to the red ferry and took us the rest of the way.

The return journey was much more straightforward.

We had a lovely wander round the island, and later we went to a hotel on the side of Lake Windermere for afternoon tea. Sandwiches, scones, and obscene quantities of cake. Yummy.