*props to thatblokeoverthere*
I feel your pain - your story made me weep like a bitch.

I travelled to the Emerald Isle with my girlfriend of the time some years ago. We thought we would take the scenic route from Birmingham to Holyhead by train and cross the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire via the super-speed-of-light-ferry-on-stilts-catamaran.

Train was pretty cool on the way, apart from stopping at one hundred million small coastal villages in Wales to let all the old people off. Got to Holyhead and the Irish Sea looked rough. "Nippy" as one of the ferry staff put it. When I was a kid, I would travel on the Portsmouth - Caen ferry all the time and absolutely loved every minute, so was kinda looking forward to the crossing.

Dreams.
Childhood.
Shattered.

While the catamaran negotiated its way out of the port, we had a quick look around. The boat was non smoking apart from a small 10ft by 10ft caged balcony at the rear. We both had a cigarette and were joined by thirty Irish truck drivers/farmers all smokin' the bejaysus out of their fags. Out of port and into the sea my stomach suddenly looped the loop and the blood drained from my face.

"I'll be back in a sec" I mumbled to my girlfriend and ran for the gents.

Most ferry toilets arent four star W.C.s at the best of times but I really didnt give a shit at that moment, booted open a cubicle door and fell to my knees. My projectile vomiting lasted for a good 20 minutes or so. Its all over, I thought. My head spinning, I stood up gingerly and my stomach and legs just gave way again. I spent the whole two and a half hours of the journey with my head pressed against the cool inside of the toilet bowl, sweating, willing it all to stop, going through all three stages of vomiting: food, liquid, stomach lining.

I think I may have even started believing in God at some point. It was like a time lapse film, me stuck in the same position while people came in and out of the toilets quickly.

We finally docked and I came out a broken man, three stone lighter. The experience gave me a traumatic fear of ferries (edit: another story to come) and my travel sickness lasted a long time. A couple of recent Dover-Calais trips have since helped overcome that, but by God, I wont ever travel to Ireland by boat again.

Not quite seven and a half hours, I know, but one fucking bad journey
( prem1um is full of life, Fri 8 Sep 2006, 14:27, Reply)