On the Stena Line

During one of the outings of the company I work for, we went to Sweden and we spent the weekend in Gothenburg. To get to Sweden, we had to take the Stena Line ferry from Kiel to Gothenburg.

When we were all aboard and checked out the decks, I wandered of to the car deck, to find out if I could find any Sties trucks. Nothing, bad luck. However, we still had to take a ferry back to Kiel, so who knows.

On Saturday, when we had to return to Kiel, our bus boarded on the Stena Line ferry and grabbed the chance to find out if I would be lucky and see some Sties trucks on the car deck. Nothing to be seen, but I decided to ask the supervisor, if there would be any Sties trucks coming on board. He told me he did not know as he only had a list of number plates, which made me ask him if I could see this list. No problem, he said, and after going through the list, I told him that there will two Sties trucks on their way to this ferry. He looked at me in a strange way and I told him that I knew the number plates of all the Sties Trucks by heart.

The clock was ticking and soon it was 19h00. He said to me that the Sties trucks were too late. I looked outside and at the horizon I see a huge spoiler with in bright light STIES appearing! They’re coming, they’re coming, I told him, but the supervisor said that it was time to take off, while he was showing me his watch.

I asked him to inform the Captain that the drivers would be here any minute. He looked at me strictly. The engine of the ship was already running, but he called up the Captain and asked him to hold for a little while. I told him that these guys had been driving all afternoon to make it to the boat. This helped and the Captain allowed them to board!

When I checked out who was driving the trucks, the nicest surprise was that one of the drivers was Roy Therkelsen. Roy was the driver who I accompanied to deliver the big Sties micro model!

 But my luck was not finished yet. I considered asking the Captain if I could leave the ship via the car deck before the trucks would depart so that I could make some pictures… I thought, I just ask him!

When I asked him, he told me that the day before, there were some delays because of somebody making pictures. I had to laugh and told him it was me. I am glad that he could laugh about it as well.

When I told him about my hobby, he found it a bit different, but he gave me permission as long as I would go through the passport check.

And so, I was the first one to set foot on land via the front of the ferry and I could make my heavily wanted pictures!

My weekend was set!

Gerrit de Heus