Motorhoming on the high seas!

I've been on lots of ferries - Dover Calais many times, Hull Rotterdam, Spain to Morocco and back and even the long one from Portsmouth to Bilbao.

But nothing compares to this!

Normally you roll up, hang around for an hour or so, and then drive on the ferry. It departs on time, and you spend your time eating crap food and avoiding hordes of school trip kids.

In Ukraine, you spend half a day trying to find the port entrance, and half a day retying to find someone who can advise you. Then you come back the next day, to be told that the next ferry is in 2 or 3 days, maybe!

3 days later you get a call asking you to come in to the office........where an admittedly very helpful Turkish buy called Hakim, in fluent Russian, tells you that the ferry is due "soon", and we can go "no problem". He says it will cost $700. $500 for me and the van, and $200 for Luda as a passenger. He wants the $200 now, and we can pay the rest of the Turkish side (it's a Turkish company) Hmmmmm.........

Everything is "No problem"! I ask for a receipt, and a confirmation of the cost. Once we are on the other side, it's a fait accompli ...... they can charge us anything!

Hmmmmmm..........we get neither!

So now I am in panic mode, and struggling to get my point across, as Luda is quite shy being caught in the middle, translating. So we have a brief conversation in English and I decide there's no point in stressing out. It is the way it is, so we go with the flow.

We are now into day 5, and finally we are in the docks. About 200 heavy artic lorries, mostly with Russian and Turkish plates, and us. We asked the security guard how many camper vans he sees - the answer, amazingly was "Nyiet". He had never seen a camper van come through this port. It's 99% trucks, and the odd car or bus.

The ship when it finally appeared is a 1979 vintage Ro-Ro (Roll on, Roll off) Italian built vessel, callled the Cenk Y, registered in Panama.

We sat in the docks wondering what to do next. Hakim, bless him, turned out to be a diamond geezer. He kept us updated, and told us that we would be literally last on the boat.

Now I sort of knew what to expect on a Turkish 30 year old truck ferry, it wasn't going to be pretty (and I was right), so we pleaded with Hakim to put us on the top deck, in the fresh air, and let us live in the van. An unusual request, given that they don't get any campers on this route. He said he would see what he could do, and talk to the captain.

We all know that it absolutely forbidden to stay in your vehicle on the car deck, but I guessed that the majority of the truckers would be sleeping in their cabs, regardless of the rules.

But first we had to get through security.....we'd already had fun getting into Ukraine, and we knew it would be fun getting out. We sat there for a whole day, watching the truckers having their lorries searched, and some of them were even being turned away.

By now it was dark, and we were tired and hungry. But finally we were waved forward. This time we were completely clean, not a whiff on anything even remotely illegal. But it's not just smuggling or stuff they are after, they are looking for the tiniest excuse for a "fine". I'm not saying theyare totally nasty corrupt, just very very thorough. They didn't know what to make of my UK paperwork, and kept asking for "vehicle passport".....finally it transpired that this meant my driving licence. They needed to check that I was licenced for a vehicle over 3.5 tons -we weigh 4.2. Then came the search. Luda got the usual third degree about illegal drugs, then they wanted to see any medical drugs we have. Well I have a box full!! So I presented him with about a Tesco carrier bag full of pharmacy drugs. I tend to hoard stuff. I had Chinese herbal remedies, painkillers and stomach bug stuff from Thailand, and many left overs from my travels. Turns out he was looking for stuff that is over the counter in other countries, but prescription only in Ukraine. Clever bastard! Luckily I had copies of all my prescriptions from the UK, so he gave up after half an hour.

Then they wanted to look in all the cupboards.....as if we would hide stuff in cupboards!!

Then they found our didgeridoo!! Well that raised a few eyebrows, but sort of broke the ice....they all had a go (thanks guys we'll clean it later!) and you know the noise a Dig makes when you don't know how to do it. Sort of like a high pitched musical fart. So merriment all round.

I could sense the moment the chief decided there was nothing down with us, and then it was all polite conversation, and smiles. They were friendly and professional.

But they can't have been really serious!! I have a top box on the roof that is perfect for a stowaway. I don't think thye even saw it! I had already checked it since a fellow traveller told me after my Morocco trip, that when they got back to Spain, having crossed from Morocco, they stopped for fuel, and were amazed to see a guy emerge from their top box and leg it off into the Spanish countryside as fast as his legs could carry him! The contents of the box, were of course gone. Mine contains patio furniture.....but I always check!

True to his word, Hakim himself came over and boarded us himself. Up the ramp we went to the top deck, where they had kept us a space, right next to the side of the ship. Yippee, fresh air and a sea view! Next to us is a black Moldovan Land Cruiser with the obligatory blacked out windows, and a single Ukrainian Toyota, that contained a family of 4 with 2 small girls - god knows where they are staying, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are being well looked after in a crew cabin somewhere. They looked knackered, they were checked in front of us and were literally taken to pieces by the same customs guys who played our digeridoo!!

Then.....nothing happened, we were still in dock 3 hours later, everything ashore deserted, everybody gone home. The ship fully loaded, and just sitting there. By this time it's at least 6 hours after departure time.

So I jumped out of the van and picked my way through the trucks, to the superstructure at the front, where the bridge and cabins and facilities would be. As I sort of expected I found a bunch of Russian and Turkish truckers watching football on TV and getting either pissed (Russians) or drinking tea (Turkish)..... Rangers were beating some local team 1-0 in the Champions League. Glum faces all round. The saloon was basic but OK. We were told there were no passenger cabins, but I did see a small sign saying "cabins". It was cool to wander freely throughout the whole ship. Eventually I found a guy that could speak english and he told me that the reason we weren't moving was the weather. Puzzling - the weather was lovely and calm!! "Maybe tomorrow!"

So we cooked dinner and went to bed.

This morning, day 6, we awoke to the sound of throbbing engines and gentle movement. Hooray, we are on our way!! The ship had stayed in port all night, and had set sail at about 10 am.

Wrong! We sailed for 15 minutes, the pilot boat picked up the pilot, and sailed straight across to another ship. This was the other boat that sails this route, and it needed the berth. We stopped and dropped anchor, all the time the sea getting bigger and bigger.

So I went on the internet and checked out the forecasts. Would you believe it, the first of the winter weather systems was tracking right across the Black Sea from west to east.

A phone call to Ludas son in Odessa, over to the west, confirmed that it was howling there, and according to the charts, heading our way. So the Captain has anchored us in the lee of the land, and here we stay, wallowing, until the system passes through, which according to the charts will be about 12 to 18 hours. The wave heights are predicted to be 3 meters and the winds only about 20 knots, but the weather would be beam on to the ship, which is sailing north south.

A friendly deck hand, who was busy chaining my van to the deck - I had to remove all the hub caps, simply said...."weather no good, ship very heavy, maybe tomorrow"

This got me thinking!! A quick Google revealed that this ship is registered at 6000 tonnes deadweight. It is 150 metres long, and has 2 decks with trucks 6 abreast. It took me 30 seconds with a calculator to work out that it is carrying at least 9000 tons of trucks, and I bet lots of them are overloaded. Every single one of them is chained to the deck, no wonder it took a day to load!

We live in a commercial world, and there is less regulation over here...........Hmmmmm

But this boat has been operating this route for 15 years, the captain knows his stuff, the crew are scruffy but competent, and I have had a damn good look at the general state of the ship and its lifeboats. All seems well maintained and in order.

So we are sat on a 30 year old rusty overloaded ship, wallowing at anchor about 3 miles out to sea, waiting for the weather to clear so we can trundle safely across the Black Sea. Every time the boat wallows, the van rocks the other way on its suspension, we both fear sea-sickness. Sat on the loo this morning in an enclosed space.......not pleasant! Just writing this blog has made me queasy.

The voyage is slated to take 18 hours.......and we have to offload and go through the whole process in reverse on the other side, and deal with Turkish customs!

I reckon it could be another 3 days!! And this voyage is roughly equivalent to Hull Rotterdam, which takes 18 hours from driving on to driving off!!

But the view is stupendous, and I bet our "cabin" is better than the Captains. We have food and drink for a week, internet access (for now), a bag full of duty free......and if the toilet gets full..........over the side it goes! The fish will re-cycle it.

And if we really get bored we can always get pissed with the Russian truckers.