Jones

I often get a really bad night’s sleep before ferry crossings, and sadly last night was one of them. Apple is very displeased with me.

The alarm went off at 6a.m., just when I’d actually managed to get to sleep, and after a Flynn walk we were off to the ferry. It turned out that as we were not travelling on the originally planned day, we needed to exchange our booking voucher for tickets, which we did, plus an open return. Valid for 12 months, so we might make it to Cape Town!

Then, as planned, a long wait for the ferry, when we had tea and coffee and relaxed. Not quite as stylish as on our delayed return from Belfast, where we managed a full English while queuing.

Our ferry was more than an hour late in leaving, but apart from that everything went smoothly. We weren’t even X-rayed on entry to Morocco this time. We did have to buy third party insurance at the border, unlike in 2023 when we had fully comp from NFU. Sadly NFU wouldn’t insure Jones unless we built castle walls and a moat and around the Old Bakery, with towers permanently manned by machine gunners. Oh, and the drive had to be converted into a drawbridge.

Well, Morocco has changed! Last time it was all bright white and blue, and there was a large shiny object in the sky. This time it was grey and pissing down.

It’s only an hour south to Asilah on the motorway, and soon we were parked up at Camp Assada – right next to John and Jo in their copy cat vehicle 😉 We’ve met virtually on MHF, so it was great to finally meet in person.

Rog and I took Flynn for a run on the beach, and then had a mooch around town. 

We stopped for a shared late lunch of fried anchovies and a beer / wine for him / her.

We’re already equipped with Orange e-SIMs for our phones, but we stopped at Maroc Telecom to try to buy a physical SIM for Jones’s MIFI. However there was a massive queue for the one woman serving 47 millions of tourist wanting a SIM before the NY bank holiday tomorrow, so in the end we gave up. 

We decided not to go out and celebrate New Year as it was raining hard and I was  increasingly unlikely to have any energy left, anyway. Instead we invited John & Jo round for drinks before dinner, and we had a lovely chat. I hope we’ll meet again sometime as we both make our way around Morocco.