We left this morning aboard this ferry (in the background of our selfie), after spending almost four weeks in France this time.

But we’ll be back!!

When I reported in my last post that the number of people had significantly reduced by the evening, we found out that those who remained were possibly the descendants of the pirates who once lived here.

There was loads of “swashbuckling“, “arrh harrh me’hearties“, and “squealing wenches” until the early hours of this morning.

Okay – I am making that up, except for the excessively loud party noises. But at 2am – all the noise stopped. It was quite weird, but we were both thankful for that.

Of course we had to go through customs and some security checking to cross the English Channel. Mick had offered to take my (much) bigger bag than his. I was not asked to go through the security, but Mick had a hard time convincing the French guard there was no knife in his (actually my) bag.

But there was – the one I bought at Le Muy markets for peeling and slicing vegetables. Anyway, they let him, and my knife, through.

Poor Mick did not know it was there.

We got a wonderful view of Saint-Malo from the boat deck.

I had booked us reclining seats for the 9 hour journey at the princely sum of £5 each. They were fantastic. We both caught up on some missed sleep from last night.

This was one of the options if I’d not paid for the reclining seats.

You can also book a cabin with a TV, there are cinemas you can attend plus a pantomime/show, and several restaurants and bars and shops.

The time passed pretty quickly, but we were caught out a little as we’d forgotten about the time difference – England is one hour behind France.

Around 4.30pm we passed the Isle of Wight.

We’re the blue dot in the middle.

Once disembarked, we caught a taxi to our accommodation in Portsmouth.

We’re not going to see much of this port town as we are booked on a bus to Cambridge tomorrow around 10am.

What we did see of Portsmouth, I think one night here will be enough.