The pointer, a time served professional, high vis jacket kept jauntily unzipped, playfully left his pointing until the last minute. It had been quite obvious which way to go but reassuring to know that this was in line with expectations. After all we were on a big sea journey and were happy to know that we were in the safe hands of a team that knew its stuff. The Jeep slid in behind a white van near the front, perfect for an early getaway at our destination.
The harbour had met with expectations. A quay, a lighthouse that looked the part, lifeboat station with bright red barn doors and the RNLI flag flying proudly aloft. Behind it the gas tanks suited the scene and up above on the headland a hotel, now defunct, stood next to the offices and transmitter of the local radio station. Slightly lower down, on the path leading towards the lighthouse stood the camera obscura.
Our ship, the Manannan, was moored next to the larger Ben My Chree, a high sided white expanse of a ferry that plied its trade between Douglas and Heysham. Thick grey smoke emitted from the two chimney pots at its rear. These looked implausibly small at the top of the huge black and red funnel.
We were Liverpool bound.
Images of Tasmania apparently adorned the forward passenger deck – the ship was built there. I couldn’t quite understand this. Didn’t they have enough cash to put up some nice photos of the Isle of Man, or Liverpool even?
The pointer made his way through our cabin to the crew area. Safety announcements over, the ship set off with sea conditions looking favourable. It was a quiet cabin, the enthusiastic voices of a couple of women in the corner just about at an acceptable level.
The news was half watched with subtitles; famine, disaster, political intrigue, a token bland good news story then mostly adverts. It was all familiar. Not worth watching.
No other ships in sight. Is the Irish Sea not a convergence point for global shipping lanes? Clearly not.
I drank a latte. Terrible. Its only redeeming feature was a small quantity of caffeine. No enjoyment and not enough to revive the body after a night of intermittent sleep spent periodically checking the time to see if the alarm was about to go off.
I wondered what the pointer did whilst at sea. Clearly there was no point in continuing his boarding duties. Perhaps he was also the navigator? Pointing and navigating seem to be complementary roles although I imagine that navigating is a bit more involved. Maybe it isn’t, on the Isle of Man ferry at least.
It is still very much breakfast time. Most people are trying to sleep except for the woman with high stamina jaws. She isn’t loud but you know she is there.
The sea is so quiet and empty you imagine that with a bit of sunshine and with sails instead of an engine we could easily become becalmed. It would definitely need the sun. Who wants to be becalmed in overcast conditions? Totally unsuitable. We need to be able to slouch around on deck complaining about the heat and doing anything we can to catch the merest of cooling breezes, imaginary.
Downstairs, and in amazing contrast to the hushed tones of the Niarbyl Lounge (where incidentally the woman has momentarily stopped talking) the bar is heaving with drinkers on their way to Aintree for the Grand National Meeting. It is 8.50am and they have been at it since the bar opened shortly after we left port. The return ferry is at 7.30 tonight. I can’t see them keeping up the pace but good luck to them.
Through the sea haze I can now see the outline of the mountains of North Wales and the phone has a full set of bars of O2 signal. We roam no more. No data connectivity though and nothing on the Vodafone sim in the laptop yet. I am on the home run for my week offline. It hasn’t been totally offline but compared to my normal behaviour has been a decent rest.
One hour to go. Not too bad though we do have the car journey to survive. Ordinarily this would not be an ordeal but this trip we left the trailer at home so the space usually left as space in the middle of the car is full of rucksack and kitbag. Ah well.
There is sufficient room on the rear deck of this ship to have a ping pong table. Whether that is a practical proposition with the sea wind is neither here nor there. The fact is that a ping pong table would easily fit. You could probably get two in and have a tournament, like they do with the snooker, and remove one of the tables when it gets nearer to the final (thereby being able to fit in more spectators).
A snooker table would not be such a sensible idea. Although the snooker balls would be less prone to blowing about in the wind they would be susceptible to rolling out of place whenever there was the slightest movement of the ship due to the frequent swells that naturally occur here in the Irish Sea. I can also confirm that there is probably not enough room for two snooker tables which are usually bigger than ping pong tables.
This being the case we would have to run with the one table for the whole tournament which would make it longer and mean that we probably wouldn’t get through all the matches before arriving at Liverpool, especially the way I play snooker.
Mind you we would also likely lose all our ping pong balls before getting in to the Mersey estuary. The whole idea is starting to sound a bit improbable. Huh!
Land is now very much in sight. I imagine the race-goers, two hours into the voyage are well warmed up and ready for equine action. I’m expecting the pointer to return to his disembarkation position any time now, armed maybe with more of a waving action this time – more suitable for encouraging rapid exit from the ship whilst maintaining passenger safety as a priority at all times.
It’s been a smooth crossing. I wouldn’t have minded some sleep but there will be plenty of time for that when I am dead and gone. On that morbid note, farewell.