This turns out to be rather uneventful. In fact incredibly smooth. The only sign we were in a moving vessel and not a hotel-with-no-windows was the slight quivering of the ship. Excited to be at sea again no doubt. This must have been a blessed relief for one of our party who clearly hates the crossings (this is his third trip). The ship was well run (Stena); the bikes well stowed and locked away. I was delighted to find that I hadn't missed anything vital from my tightly packed panniers.
Oh, and Rhys did sleep badly. He says it was the ship, not me. Actually through the night he gave plenty of evidence of sleeping soundly, so I don't know what he's complaining about.
Hearty breakfast (as in 'the prisoner ate...') and off we go. A an early stop for quick tweak from Chris Yanda to my bike, new batteries for Nigel (well, for his bike computer), a bumper pack of Ibuprofen for Nick Leach and we're off...