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| As departure time approached, many passengers made their way up to the aft outside deck to watch us leave. Whilst standing there I noticed a figure clambering up the mooring ropes of the Berkane berthed opposite. At first glance I assumed this was a member of one of the mooring teams but it turned out actually to be a young man, aged about 15 to 25, stripped down to just a pair of shorts and carrying a small plastic bag. At the same time, another figure could be seen, this time clinging to the Wisteria’s ropes and making a rapid advance up them towards Deck 5. To the G&T drinking observer high up on the passenger decks, the feat didn’t look too challenging but after several valiant attempts our pair of young would-be stowaways gave up, exhausted from the effort not just of climbing up the ropes but also evidently of swimming across from the fishing boat quay opposite the ferry terminal. Soon enough, a third figure emerged from the sea and onto the quayside, jumped straight onto the Wisteria’s ropes and disappeared from sight. Genuinely convinced that he had made it, a little cheer went up from the ever-growing crowd watching from the Wisteria’s decks. Those viewing from the Berkane however knew better and having stood precariously on the ship’s ducktail sponson for a few moments, the third figure clambered back down to the quayside to rejoin his friends.
Engrossing as this was, one was acutely aware that what was being lapped up as entertainment by the passengers on board the two ships was in reality the make-or-break dash for a new life of three young men, their lifetime’s possessions tucked away in their little plastic bags. With the Berkane and the Wisteria towering above them like a pair of grandstands, the quayside assumed the form of a mini-coliseum and passengers roared encouragement as a few more failed attempts were made. Their hopes clearly dashed, the trio then started shouting up, asking those on board the ships for help. The only response was that people started throwing down coins; this soon became a rather grotesque spectacle as philanthropy was soon quickly replaced by the rather distressing entertainment opportunity offered by the chance to make them run around the quayside scrabbling about on the floor for a few Eurocents and, on occasion, fighting amongst themselves to get to a coin first. |
| MOROCCO, SEPTEMBER 2006 Part Two: Wisteria (continued) Nador - Almeria 2006 pictures © matt@hhvferry.com |
| Above and below: The first class restaurant on the Prinses Beatrix (above) which became the Honfleur Restaurant on the Duc de Normandie (below). |
| Top: Trans Europa safety instructions nestle alongside a Brittany Ferries Western Channel map on board the Wisteria. |
| Above: The controls on the ex-Lufthansa seating are alas no longer operative. |
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| A new character was at this stage introduced to the fray in the form of what appeared to be a port worker, but his outnumbered attempts to apprehend the trio were in vain; he was later joined by an officer from one of the ships. Perhaps fortunately, the normally so efficient port police were nowhere to be seen. The tactics of the port worker and the officer were, rather than make real efforts at capture, to force them back into the sea. This they eventually did, one of the threesome making a swim for it in the murky brown slime that probably gives Nador its distinctive smell. For a period the swimmer disappeared from sight as he swam astern of the Wisteria back across to the opposite quayside, but eventually he resurfaced on the rocks facing us, where a small crowd had gathered. That left however the remaining two who were clinging on to a small fender at the end of the quay, adjacent to the ladder they had first climbed when they came out of the sea. All those of us on the ships could see was two small shivering faces looking up from the feet of the port worker. There was still no sign of the port police and, after a while, the two ferries began preparations for departure with the two faces still in the water. On board the Wisteria, the mooring team were looking over the sides for evidence of further stowaways and much chatter on walkie-talkies was followed by a quick search of all the passenger spaces and outside decks by a team of crew members. The stand-off at the end of the quay unresolved, our ship charged up her engines and finally let go and moved off the berth. As we pulled away we could still see the two wannabe passengers clinging for dear life in the water at the end of the pier with a pair now of port officials standing over them. We, and many of the ship’s passengers crowded on the outside deck, could only stare and wonder – at the audacity of it, at what might have happened had they met with success and of the fate that would befall them now in failure. [Report continues on next page] |
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| Above and below: On the Wisteria, this space has been filled with reclining seats, although the buffet counters from its previous guise remain. |
| Above: The aft entrance desk to the former restaurant has also been left in place, although it is now guarded by a lonely airline seat. |
| Above: The separate forward section of the lounge. |
| Above: Just astern of the restaurant was originally an area of first class seating, as pictured, On the Duc de Normandie, this was converted to become a pair of cinemas, and these remain on the Wisteria. |
| Above and below: On the opposite side of the Prinses Beatrix could be found the first class bar (above). Brittany Ferries would later open this area up to a section of the aft lounge, it becoming a Salon de thé named 'Le Devon' (seen below on the Duc de Normandie in 2005). |
| Above: Looking forward in the former Salon de thé on the Wisteria. TEF have introduced some of their red seating (similar to that found on the Primrose and Eurovoyager) but the space is otherwise unchanged. |
| Above and below: A view of the port side of the aft first class lounge on the Prinses Beatrix. The same area is seen (below) as part of the Salon de thé on the Wisteria. The windows visible in the background originally looked onto the first class outside deck astern, but when the ship became Duc de Normandie, this area was enclosed to become the 'Jardin de Monet'; the windows however were left in place. |
| Above and below: Another view of the Prinses Beatrix's first class lounge (above). The bulk of this on the starboard side became the Duc de Normandie's main bar, 'L'Alambic', seen (below) on the Wisteria. |
| Above: Just forward of the bar on the starboard side was an area of slot machines on the Duc de Normandie (as pictured). On the Wisteria, this space has seen a rather dramatic change of use, becoming the ship's mosque. The substantial doors are a clue that originally this area formed the entrance to the first class reclining seat lounge on the Prinses Beatrix, latterly the cinemas - these are now however accessed instead via the lobby forward. |
| Above: The 'Jardin de Monet' on board the Wisteria, unchanged from the ship's final Brittany Ferries days. |
| Above and below: Up on B Deck on the Prinses Beatrix (later Deck 8) could be found a large second class reclining seat lounge (above). This would later be extended and refitted by Brittany Ferries, although in the early Duc de Normandie years the original brown leather seating was retained. A section of the same space is seen on the Wisteria (below). |
| Above: Passengers crowding on the Berkane's aft decks. |
| Above: Forced back into the sea, a pair of the wannabe stowaways can be seen at the feet of a port worker at the end of the quayside as the Wisteria prepared to depart. |