Wednesday 24 February

An earlyish start as today we're heading back to Spain but despite this, by the time we'd packed, serviced the van, paid and said our goodbyes it was gone 11.00 by the time we were away. But it's less than 2 hours drive up the motorway so we were not unduly concerned, although it was soon obvious that we'd missed our chance of getting an earlier crossing – we were “booked” on the 4.00 pm.

Although it was not needed we took the opportunity of topping off the fuel tank with cheap diesel; at 50p per litre every little helps! Arriving at the port we again encountered the “helpers”, guys who tried to make out they were official and would take you to the various places, i.e. the check-in desk, then expect to be paid for their trouble. They're not necessary so we just ignored them.

Despite everything being somewhat bureaucratic, check-in, Police and Customs clearances went smoothly and quickly. Every vehicle is X-rayed before proceeding to the quayside, so we had to get out and also of course take Jamie with us, who then enjoyed himself playing with the Customs man! Arriving on the dock we discovered to our chagrin that we had just missed the earlier, fast ferry which pulled out as we arrived. Bother, or other such exclamations!

So having a couple of hours to kill we had lunch and Bren had a snooze while Terry used up some of the leftover internet allowance. Next time we won't buy as much as even though it is so cheap we resent throwing away 13 gigabytes of data allowance!

And then the fun (!) started. By 3.50 pm there was no sign of a ferryboat. We waited and waited until eventually at 4.50 it turned up. Then of course it had to be unloaded and the Moroccan Immigration officers inspect the passports of everyone getting off as they do so, even the car and lorry drivers! And the foot passengers who also used the vehicle ramp! It's not surprising therefore that it was 5.30 before we started loading, being directed deep into the bowels of the ship. Then all the lorries had to be loaded – in reverse one at a time. Talk about frustrating.

Meanwhile we were sitting in the passenger lounge which was slowly filling up with foot passengers, mostly migrant workers returning home with loads of luggage which was getting under everybodys feet. Then the baby started crying.............

At 6.30 pm the ship pulled away so we decided to celebrate with a cup of coffee, only to find the attendant had just gone off on his break. But at least there was another coffee bar further forward so we did manage to get our drinks and thereafter enjoyed a very smooth hour and a half crossing.

But you now have to add on an hour for the change of time zone – Morocco (as well as Portugal) is on GMT but of course all the other European countries are plus one hour, so our arrival time was in fact 9.00 pm local. And we had still to get off the ship, but of course first on, last off. It took 40 mins to get off then pass through police and customs checks – but nobody took any notice of Jamie!

Fortunately it was only 10 mins to our planned overnight stop, back on the car park by the ticket agent. Of course, having not had an evening meal we were rather hungry and the only place open was....... McDonalds. But any port in a storm and we enjoyed giant chickenburgers, frites and coffee, finished off with a McFlurry each. Then back to Bertie for a welcome good nights sleep.