Boats, Boats, And More Boats...And An Ice-Cream!

The weather deteriorated today on the Isle of Wight, so it was probably just just as well that I was heading home! I had another slow morning because I had an evening ferry booked. I left the wacky campsite, but not before I had a good browse round the antiques barn (The Cowshed) that is also on the same site. No doubt the antiques barn helps to supply all sorts of wacky and vintage items for the campsite!

After lunch I made a quick trip into West Cowes to buy and post a birthday card, and while I was there a Red Jet came in from Southampton (Top left). This is a fast pedestrian ferry only. I had to make my way over to East Cowes to get the vehicle ferry back to Southampton. The quickest way to do that is to take the chain ferry (or ‘floating bridge’) across the very short stretch of water to East Cowes (top right). That saved me a 10-mile (16km) drive.

Once safely delivered by the chain ferry, it was only a few metres drive to the Red Funnel vehicle ferry (middle left). I was able to get on an earlier one than I had booked, and it was delayed a bit, so I braved the rain and took some pictures of it coming in.

The crossing to Southampton is just an hour. I was tired so I snoozed for a few minutes but I woke up in time to see two cruise ships outside! The first one was Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (middle right), which I had seen in port last Sunday when I left Southampton. The second one was P&O’s Arcadia (bottom left).

We were soon in Southampton. I have a tradition that I started when Dolly and I went to the Isle of Wight 2 years ago to pick up Alfie the Campervan. This ice cream van always seems to be there along the waterfront at Mayflower Park right next to the ferry terminal. With so much rain I was surprised it was there. I quickly parked, grabbed my umbrella and before I could get out of the van I saw him starting to close the hatch! Noooo!!! He saw me coming though, and kept it open just in time to serve me, his last customer of the day. He decided to call it quits because he wasn’t getting enough business. I hope one more sale helped a little bit!

Friday evening is not the best time to be driving home, but fortunately I had left it late enough and the rush hour was over so I made good time on the way home. I had so much fun this week, but it’s always good to walk through my front door again!