- Joined
- Jan 21, 2005
- Messages
- 27,647
- Location
- Mittel England
- Car
- Smart ForFour AMG Black Series Night Edition Premium Plus 125 Powered by Brabus
Been away in our caravan the last week or so - the not-so-sunny Isle of Wight was the destination this time.
We were due to catch the 1630 ferry from Fishbourne yesterday on our way home. I handed the ticket over to the Wight Link chappie at 1607, as my wife took a call from M-I-L at the same time. She'd called to say I'd dropped some keys in their awning - they've stayed longer than us - and still enjoying IOW rain.
We had the car key (obviously), house keys, and even the caravan door key. What we didn't have was the key to the Alko hitch-lock which was standing in the way of me decoupling the caravan when we got home. And the spare was on the same keyring!! Doh!!
So my F-I-L set off straight away, heading to the Ferry port, and I alerted the Wight Link folks on the slip, who radioed the main gate house, so they were expecting him. We all thought it would be close but would realistically be too tight to make the 1630 ferry.
Then 23 minutes after the call, we'd all but conciled ourselves to catching a later ferry, and reluctantly the guys on the slip called on a caravan due to be on the next ferry, to take our place. He had moved literally just a few feet when I spied F-I-L appear at the gate house.
I jumped out and shouted STOP. All the Wight Link blokes shouted STOP. And then about 10 of them stopped all other traffic, and started waving arms to guide my F-I-L to us down a lane they'd cleared just in case he made it - its was like George W Bush was coming through.
Keys in hand, we rolled down the slip on to the ferry, and the ramp started lifting behind us before I'd applied the parking brake. Seriously. Another 10 seconds and the other caravan would have been on the ramp ahead of us, and it would have been game over.
Absolutely superb service from Wight Link!! Oh, and my Father-in-Law!!
:bannana:
We were due to catch the 1630 ferry from Fishbourne yesterday on our way home. I handed the ticket over to the Wight Link chappie at 1607, as my wife took a call from M-I-L at the same time. She'd called to say I'd dropped some keys in their awning - they've stayed longer than us - and still enjoying IOW rain.
We had the car key (obviously), house keys, and even the caravan door key. What we didn't have was the key to the Alko hitch-lock which was standing in the way of me decoupling the caravan when we got home. And the spare was on the same keyring!! Doh!!
So my F-I-L set off straight away, heading to the Ferry port, and I alerted the Wight Link folks on the slip, who radioed the main gate house, so they were expecting him. We all thought it would be close but would realistically be too tight to make the 1630 ferry.
Then 23 minutes after the call, we'd all but conciled ourselves to catching a later ferry, and reluctantly the guys on the slip called on a caravan due to be on the next ferry, to take our place. He had moved literally just a few feet when I spied F-I-L appear at the gate house.
I jumped out and shouted STOP. All the Wight Link blokes shouted STOP. And then about 10 of them stopped all other traffic, and started waving arms to guide my F-I-L to us down a lane they'd cleared just in case he made it - its was like George W Bush was coming through.
Keys in hand, we rolled down the slip on to the ferry, and the ramp started lifting behind us before I'd applied the parking brake. Seriously. Another 10 seconds and the other caravan would have been on the ramp ahead of us, and it would have been game over.
Absolutely superb service from Wight Link!! Oh, and my Father-in-Law!!
:bannana:
