U turn if you want to!

After Reading David Kylne’s experience of the IOW ferry I thought it might be interesting to tell you of our excursion to Jersey this summer. My wife and I have been to the IOW for quite a few holidays now taking advantage of the 5 night special Red Funnel deals, this year we fancied going a bit further afield and as my better half had always go the channel isles this was going to be the perfect adventure.

As we have three dogs that go on all of our holidays with us, the conventional slow ferry was going to be too long a crossing, taking about 8 hours, so after some research we found that there was a fast ferry that did the 100 mile crossing from Poole to St Hellier in about 4 and half hours. This was the answer to getting our dogs safely across with us. The fast ferry, later to be renamed ‘the vomit comet’ is a giant catamaran that skips along at about 30 knots in fine weather. We had booked the first ferry of the morning, arriving at Poole docks in plenty of time as we didn’t want to risk missing our crossing.

I had no qualms about getting onto the ferry with our little caravan, as I though our IOW experiences stood us in good stead for anything that was going to be thrown our way. So, when our time to embark came I was very pleased to be singled out to be the first vehicle to get boarded. We drove up to where the Condor ferry was waiting and followed the directions of the crew as they drew me into the hull of the ferry, when we got right inside I was given the signal to halt, and then to my horror the crew man started to point left. I looked at my  wife who was looking back at me with one of those looks that signify both confusion and terror and we both said ‘ does he want us to turn  here’. The realisation struck me like a  bolt of lightning…this was not a roll on – roll off ferry like the IOW ones, there was only one door, so we were being manoeuvred to do a complete ‘U’ turn to face the way we had just come on. I edged round worryingly checking my mirrors as our caravan came within millimetres of the steel stations supporting the upper decks. Luckily for the crew, this was an everyday occurrence for them and they guided me expertly round.

I now understand why there is a maximum outfit length allowed on this ferry, it was a frightening experience, but now we’ve done it we’re already planning to go back again next year!