Shipyard at Portsmouth

Twenty five years ago, I and my middle school chum Glenn began our European jaunt with a short sail crossing a sea. With today being the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion in WWII, I figured it was as good as anything to post what I was doing over there 25 years ago.

“We arrived last night about 10 in Portsmouth- 10 hours too late to see the D-Day events with Clinton and all of the other stuff. We left the train station and wandered downtown for about two hours looking either for food (I got a burger for £1.70) or a place to stay. We then took a bus to a Bed and Breakfast district, where we again wandered for a while. Finally, about 1, we took a room in a place off of the street facing the beach, on the waterfront. We slept until 12:30 today.

“It’s about 5:15(PM) and we are (on a ferry) en route from Portsmouth toward Caen, France. We are crossing the channel, 50 years after the fact. We missed the festivities, but we are here. I am in the upstairs deck lounge, and Glenn is up front sleeping. At embarkment we met a man from Caen, a certain Laurent Trillier, a twenty-six year old civil servant teacher of English, army man, and student. He went to see a movie- I think he’ll give us a lift to Caen.

“We gain an hour hitting France. The ferry left at 3. The harbor was full of destroyers, a couple of landlocked schooners, and other ships. Obviously, Portsmouth is the naval place in England- not enough time to take it in though. It is overcast over the channel as we cross. The boat is surrounded by the sea, the rising and falling white-speckled swells of European ocean. There is a circle of sunlight to the west of the boat, an orb on the water. The ship is lined in its lower decks with quarters for sleeping, foredeck with rooms of sleeping recliners, and on the upper level, a bar, shopping areas, a childrens’ playing room, and in the bottom berth, cars.”

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“We essentially stayed up all night wandering around Caen with two guys we met- John, the polyglot, and Werner, the Swiss expatriate who joined us in the city. We marched around the city until 3(AM), when we returned to (train) station to wait for the 5:20 to Paris.”

I remember getting good and nauseous for the last hour of the Channel crossing. But it was a remarkable day, and an exciting night of anticipation. Until we really, really needed to sleep.

The Queen’s Yacht, HMY Britannia, Returning Home From France