'Cheers' before the storm

We arrived at Dover, in Kent, for the 2pm sailing to Dunkerque in very good time, only to find the boat hadn't yet arrived. The wind and rain had been gathering force all day, and as we sat on the quay we could already sense the power of the elements as the car swayed in the strong gusts of wind. A big storm had been forecast for days and luckily its arrival was predicted to be about twelve hours after our crossing.

Once on board the boat, our departure was only delayed by 90 minutes, and I walked to the front of the boat's interior to look out at the state of the sea. There were waves even in the harbour and beyond its walls the rollers were cresting into big white tops. Through the windows it looked like a rough voyage ahead.

Luckily though the boat handled the waves very well, with its built in stabilisers working very well. Nevertheless the boat did shudder and shake and lean and veer, particularly during the first part of the crossing, as after that the coastline of France seemed to provide some protection from the prevailing westerly wind with its consequent long reach that tends to build up the size of the waves.

I went outside for part of the journey and sheltered behind bulkheads, which provided relatively still air. A small movement of a few feet though and you could be nearly blown over. I watched other mercantile boats crashing through the waves and some of them, including other ferries seem much less stable in the conditions with waves breaking high over their bows which often seemed to dive down into the water. I may add some of those images to a gallery later.

I saw this group of friends drinking wine in one of the sheltered areas outside and sneaked this shot. I rather liked the sense of tranquility of the glass of red wine in his hand in these inclement conditions.

Once we had docked in darkness, we set off for the next stage of our journey, out of France across the whole of Belgium and up to the most easterly part of the Netherlands three hundred miles away beside the German border.

Check out Woodpeckers blips for the week as she tends to be more eloquent about our days!