Ferries

Today was a big milestone as we booked the first ferry of the trip. A random email from GNV the Italian ferry company offered a lot of discount and a 10% reservation deposit offer. Too good to ignore although the email ended up in the Spam bin and it was just luck that I noticed it and even read it.

We have decided to leave from Sete which is in France and arrive in Nador in Morocco 44 hours later. It takes out 1000 miles of driving to the south of Spain and puts us right at the start of the TMT

We have to buy road insurance in Morocco and so have to arrive within office hours. Several ferry options saw us arriving late Friday or Sunday leaving us waiting 1 or 3 days before we could start.

We also noticed “Man” Cabins and “Lady” cabins and after some sorting found that these are randomly shared cabins not individually allocated. That could have been an exciting discovery at 3am when a Moroccan lorry driver shares the lower bunk with you.

The return to Spain or France will be around 5 weeks after we arrive but if we book a return it puts pressure on us to make the date or if things go well leaves us waiting around at Tangier. Neither is attractive.

We will decide when we get close to the end of the TMT what our options look like.

With the outward date now set it feels like the first step is done. Albeit 10 months away.

For my return I can either head toward Bilbao or Santander or continue toward the French channel ports.

The Spanish option is a 1000 km drive and a 600 overnight ferry which in November can be very rough and frequently delayed or cancelled.

The French option is 2000 km and £150 ferry but includes a few more days and a few more cheap motels and diesel.

I will wait until I get to Spain before making that call.