Calais; Saturday, 25 October, 2003

Leaving from my friends in Worthing at 7:00 on a Saturday morning for a sailing from Dover just 60 miles away at 10:30 would seam to be perfectly doable. If it wasn't for the actions of the highways agency it would have been a very quick trip but in the end we went on a 35 mile diversion round a closed 3 mile stretch of road! We finally got to Dover with just minutes to spare but thankfully made it onto the ferry. The crossing was very smooth with a clear blue sky and almost millpond still water. The highlight of the journey possibly being the race that our Captain and the Captain of the rival Sea France ferry were having, we won! Once in Calais it takes about 10 minutes before you actually get out of the ferry terminal and onto the main roads. Plenty of time for my friend who was driving to adapt to the fact that she had never driven on the right before!

After wandering around some back roads for a while we eventually came across the hypermarket and proceeded to spend the next 2 hours overfilling a large trolley.

Once the greed over cheap booze had abated we drove back into Calais itself and went for a meal on the sea front, during which the wind started to rise from bracing to gale!

After the meal we wandered back into the main part of the town itself and had a quick look around before it was time to return to the car and take the ferry back, this time with a considerable swell that caused a little bit of rolling and a 20 minute delay to the crossing. The journey back from Dover, going all the way back up to the M25 on the motorway and then back down again, took considerably less time than going in a straight line had in the morning!