May 26: Return to Jersey Island

Previous: May 25

No photos today, since we were moving around too much and were too encumbered by our baggage to be faffing around with a camera. Sorry!

Tidal schedules being what they are and the island coasts being flat, there are relatively narrow windows in which a large ferry can enter harbor and pick up travelers. As noted in previous posts, many parts of Jersey have fast-moving tides, so the ship has to get in and out in a hurry. This limits the number of ferries per day, and although you can hire a smaller "water taxi" between islands if you miss your ferry, the costs are prohibitive. So it's important to get to the ferry well in advance so you can go through security before the ferry leaves. Security is rudimentary compared with airline security. For example, on our way to Guernsey, I had to remove my laptop etc. from the backpack for scanning and declared my Swiss Army Knife before going through security, and they bagged it and gave it back to me when we arrived. But returning to Jersey, they couldn't be bothered, and just passed everything through the scanner as a single object.

To ensure that we wouldn't miss our ferry back to Jersey, we packed our bags the night before (i.e., yesterday) to ensure that we wouldn't be fussing around at the last minute and leaving behind important things like plug adaptors for our electronics. Hart's rule of luggage volume is that no matter how spartanly you try to pack, the volume of everything you brought with you somehow manages to expand during the vacation. The weight also increases. Maybe it's binge-eating while we're out touristing? Not that I'm judging, given how much I've eaten, but still... This doesn't even include any souvenirs or gifts you purchase. This non-conservation-of-mass behavior should in theory, defy physics, but as we all know, physics should never be allowed to get in the way of a good story. It's not, like, a law or anything.

Somehow we managed to get everything into the luggage. So when we woke at 5 AM to catch a taxi 45 minutes later, we mostly just had to fuss around in the bathroom, then open every furniture drawer and closet multiple times to make sure that even though no crucial possession was present the last time we looked, nothing had crept into the drawer or closet while our backs were turned. We'll see what we left behind when we get home and unpack.

Our taxi driver, Glen, picked us up a few minutes early and drove us to the ferry port at a speed I'd wager was considerably higher than the posted speed limits. Not much traffic, and he was clearly a master driver, so we arrived without a scratch and in plenty of time to check in and get through security.

Our ferry was the same mid-sized model we took originally to get to Guernsey, so all the seats were enclosed, with none out in the open. I guess the idea was that if you hit high winds or waves, you don't want the ship to roll and pitch half the paying customers overboard. (Shoshanna overheard one of the ferry crew claiming that heavy seas are apparently a greater risk going to Guernsey than to Jersey, since the wind blows towards Jersey.) In any event, the sea was so calm I could hardly feel the waves. Mostly I just napped.

Once in Jersey, we decided to try walking to the hotel instead of taking a taxi. (I can only assume the already-high temperatures had addled my brain.) It was a schlep; my big pack weighs 40+ pounds and the little one is about 30+ pounds. But at least there were no stairs! After about 20 minutes, we reached the Norfolk Hotel around 8:30. Since checkout wasn't until 2 PM, we left our bags behind the check-in counter. There's no "lockup" or ticketing for the bags, which strikes me as a bit risky. So I transfered my laptop, phone, and passport into my daypack.

Because our room comes with breakfast, but we're leaving tomorrow before the dining room opens, Shoshanna sweet-talked the receptionist into letting us have that breakfast today. The food was a distinct letdown after the many different feasts at the Franklyn prepared by chef Elena and the small but delicious and variable feasts at Le Chene. Not bad, so much as not up to the same standards. Afterwards, we sat for about 3 hours in a pleasant courtyard with an arbor overhead to provide shade, getting caught up on e-mail.

The day's plans were to meet Shoshanna's friend Trepkos and her partner for lunch, but he wasn't feeling well and stayed home. On the way to lunch, Trepkos took us to a birdwatching blind in a local bird sanctuary that she goes to regularly to see if any unusual birds are present. Mostly we saw "greylag"geese and their very cute goslings. Greylags are a formerly domesticated species that has gone feral and spread widely, including to Jersey. There were also a few ducks, magpies, and (invisible) reed warblers warbling from under cover in the reeds, per their name. A pleasant diversion, since we got to watch several species of bird pretending they didn't know we were watching them.

We took Trepkos to lunch at the Jersey Pearl café, which is primarily a pearl jeweller and vendor with a café attached so friends and family of pearl buyers have something to do while they wait for the pearl browsing to reach a conclusion. Trepkos had a "mayo egg" (what we'd call a chopped egg sandwich), after some confusion from the waitress over what she'd actually ordered. She and Shoshanna both had cream tea, with fresh scones covered in jam and English clotted cream. Clotted cream is sort of like whipped cream that died and went to heaven and then came back to settle around one's hips. I didn't have any food because heat kills my appetite and I'd had a large breakfast. But I did have a small Peroni Astro Azsurro, a pleasant and bubbly Italian beer. Purely for medicinal purposes to cope with the heat.

Trepkos dropped us off at the hotel so we could check in and move our bags to our room, then headed home to check on her partner. Once the bags were dropped, we ran out and picked up a few gifts to bring home.

The temperature apparently hit 34°C today, which is about 8° above the temperature at which my brain shuts down. Nonetheless, there were a couple last-minute gifts I wanted to pick up. Shoshanna wasn't enthusiastic about going out, but kept me company during the half hour or so it took to head out and return. Maybe we finally learned that "relax" thing we'd signally failed to achieve previously?

Although the hotel, like many (most?) British hotels, lacks air conditioning in the rooms, the Norfolk at least provided a fan, which is keeping us from melting down as I write. Trepkos says these historically unusual heat waves are becoming the new normal in Jersey. Although I wouldn't call the hotel's water supply to the shower abundant, it was much better than the other two places we stayed. So now I'm sitting cozily in our room, nicely showered and parked in front of the fan while I write.

The Norfolk is a mid-range hotel. It's clean and spacious, but doesn't appear to be anything distinguished, other than the shaded back yard. The staff we've interacted with have been nice. The shower facilities aren't up to North American standards, which are admittedly wasteful. Still, there's nothing quite like a flood of shower water when you've been out in the hot sun for a couple hours.

Tomorrow we leave early (around 7 AM) to get to the airport for the flight that will get us to Heathrow, where we catch our flight home. There's a 5-hour gap between flights, so we'll probably have time to provide an update, but I don't expect there will be anything terribly exciting to write about. When it comes to air travel, a lack of excitement is generally a good thing.

Next: May 27-28