Normally the crossing takes 45 minutes. It took us an hour and a half. The waves were abnormally high and the prow of the launch had to break through the crests to make headway. Naturally every so often a huge wave crashed over the launch and half the Atlantic sea washed over us as we were exposed to the elements. The skipper and his co pilot were nice and dry inside their cabin. After a while when we were thoroughly soaked to the skin, we all saw the futility of avoiding the onslaught of 'bathtime'. They were not short of giving us a few fishing nets to cast overboard. Next I thought we'd burst into singing old sea shanties.Instead we burst out laughing when half the water went through one sleeve and out the other. I was lucky sitting under the cabin overhang on the leeward side of the wind and therefore sheltered from most of the waves. However the young germans were 'passing around the soapbars'.

This was all very fine until one of the Germans stopped smiling and laughing, grew very silent, then went green around the gills and made his way to the side of the launch for a technicolour yawn into the oily sunsplattered sea. He did that a few times as we progressed further out from the mainland. I suddenly remembered I had a huge Irish breakfast of pudding, eggs and bacon. My imagination started playing tricks on me. I envisaged the fried eggs being pummeled by the rashers into a scrambled gourmet mush or trying to do the backstroke over the eggy goo. The black and white pudding was probably engaged in the Bossa Nova with my duodenum and winning awards for doing so. As for the brown bread it more than likely tried to climb up my windpipe. I immediately struck these thoughts from my mind. Actually I was distracted by another salty waterfall courtesy of the Atlantic ocean, thank you old man of the sea, just what we needed!!.