Predators didn’t like noise, we reasoned, neither did snakes. Nothing was going to come looking for what sounded like a crowd of people. So, a crowd we became: shouting and singing as we tore through the forest in a paranoid frenzy, our torch waving from side to side before us, surveying the bushes.
Crossing the Channel
Our last night in Ireland was spent in Cork, drinking Murphy’s, the local stout, while drifting between the pubs near our hostel. We caught a bus to Rosslare the following morning to meet our ferry to Cherbourg, France, and watched the rain drip down outside the window as we passed through the river ports on Ireland’s south east coast.
Boarding the Irish Ferry, amongst a trickle of other foot passengers, we sat down at the nearest available table, one of a long line stretching through a corridor, its carpet a dirty red. Fruit machines had been placed in the small space between every set of bolted down furniture.
The captain’s voice eventually crackled down the public address system, warning of typically rough seas, the engines quietly started, and we left the British Isles. The sea was initially soft and we went quickly beyond the sight of land. Standing on deck, watching Ireland fade, I turned to see the ship’s jail, an occupant bashing on the door. I had never been this far out to sea, where land is forgotten and the ship becomes a world unto itself.
The calm seas eventually became rough, not long after sunset. The ship was pitching heavily, an angry spray occasionally splashing against our window. The glass front of a duty free shop ran alongside the corridor. Its bottles jangled with each dull thud of the prow, and occasionally broke. I watched people walking down the corridor bump into tables as we rose, and the opposite wall as we sank. Most were leaving the cabaret bar at its far end. Continue reading Crossing the Channel>>
