I woke up the next day, the first of April, still in James and Greta’s flat and immediately reached for my laptop and continued my boat research. There were disappointingly still no leads on any of the sailboat crewing websites and I was by now losing faith in that idea. I had to concede that even if I was fortunate enough to find a craft of some kind down in Bali that was setting sail for Australia within my small time window, there was still the very strong possibility that they either a) wouldn’t be looking for crew or b) would not particularly want a deckhand with no sailing experience and a rather awkwardly shaped piece of excess luggage. That being said I did have one previous experience on a sail boat – in 2012 I hitched a lift with a Canadian man on his small boat from Cuba to Jamaica. The only trouble being that it could hardly be noted on my resume as ‘sailing experience’ what with my time during the rather turbulent 24-hour journey being evenly divided between throwing up over the side and lying down below deck wishing I might die.

I suppose it might have been the memory of this traumatising sailing escapade that brought my attention once again back towards the cruise option. Interestingly enough, I also had prior experience in this department, as it was a cruise ship that had returned me across the Atlantic from Miami to Barcelona a few months after my Caribbean mishap. I must admit that of the two experiences I did prefer the cruise. I mean, there were dancing girls, and a swimming pool, and the only time I felt sick was when I spent too long at the all-you-can-eat-buffet (which was most of the time.) Presently I was now looking at a P&O cruise that would pass through Bali and then go on to Darwin that I could probably just about afford with a little help from Mr Credit Card.

What I needed to know was whether the cruise line would allow me to hop on board in Bali. Uncovering this information was made a little more difficult by P&O, who had provided no email address or contact form on their website, but I did finally manage to find a link by which I could have a ‘live chat’ with one of their ‘cruise specialists’ online and I was soon connected through to Anna. Although the website suggested I was talking to a real person I had my doubts about whether or not Anna was one quite early on. Her formulaic responses and tendency to repeat the phrase ‘Let me get the specifics for this concern’ raised my suspicions quite early on, and I was soon sure that she was either a robotic computer program or a keen new intern with excellent grammar.

Even so she was able to do rather a good job of answering my queries. According to Anna it was never possible to join any cruise at a tender port. I thought these ports shouldn’t be so sensitive, but Anna went on to explain that a tender port was one where small tender boats had to be used to transport passengers to and from shore. And was Bali a tender port? Of course it was. Dammit!!! Another blow to my chances, I couldn’t board in Bali, nor any other Indonesian island. Well, I’d got all the information I needed, but before closing the chat window I thought I might just push the capabilities of Anna’s computing powers by asking her to take her clothes off. Then I thought better of it, and instead typed a question which, for a real person, should have been quite easy: ‘Anna, are you sure you’re a real person?’

One minute later Anna responded: ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

Thirty seconds after that, Anna wrote again: ‘Let me get the specifics for this concern. One moment please.’

And about ten seconds after that, there was no doubt a small explosion in a P&O office somewhere.

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At this moment in time things were really not looking good. In fact they were looking quite desperate. Going down to Bali to try and hitch on a yacht was looking like an increasingly risky plan A, and my plan B had just been blown out of the water (fortunately not literally). I went back through all of the cruises that I’d been researching and one-by-one I mentally crossed them out as being impossible to board because they only stopped in tender ports. Apart… from… one… The 12 days ‘Treasure of Asia’ from Singapore to Freemantle departing May 25th. Wait a minute, I thought, sitting up straight, I’m in Singapore! And Freemantle is in Australia! THIS IS MY BOAT!!!

I’d previously dismissed this cruise because Freemantle, in a rather annoying twist of geography, sits in the far south-west of Australia, and, apart from the neighbouring city of Perth, is about four hundred thousand kilometres from anywhere. Crossing the vast empty Nullarbor desert by bicycle would certainly be a painful undertaking, but nothing compared to the pain involved in being forced to take an aeroplane. This was my boat, I knew it. I had to be on this boat. Excitedly I quickly fired off a couple of emails to travel agents that sold tickets for the cruise, asking them if it would be possible to take my bike with me on board and if it would be possible to book a twin room and add a second passenger to the booking at a later date. It wasn’t long before I got a reply into my inbox. I clicked on it expectantly. ‘Sorry, but this cruise is sold out.’ Nooooooo!!!

Dammit, dammit, dammit!!! Why hadn’t I done all this sooner?! I could have booked this cruise months ago! Why, oh why did I wait until my boat was sold out before deciding that it was my boat?! I was in fits of despair now. My options were diminishing by the hour. James and Greta were awake now, and did their best to console me, in an ‘aren’t you supposed to be leaving today?’ sort-of-way.

But then ‘ping’ another email arrived in my inbox. It was from a woman named Sally, another travel agent, but it might as well have been from an angel. ‘Hi Chris,’ it went, ‘Yes, we do still have some interior rooms available on this cruise. Yes you can take your bike on board as long as it is boxed. And yes you can add another person to the room later on. All I need from you now is your name and passport number to secure a booking.’

YAHOOO!!!!!!! I had my boat!!! YAHOOO!!!!!!!

I hastily sent Sally the required information and she informed me that I’d get a cheaper price if I paid in full now, so I pulled out Mr Credit Card and filled out the payment information. 900 pound sterling, although that would drop to 450 pounds-a-piece if I could find someone to share the room with. For passage to Australia with complimentary dancing girls I thought that was a very reasonable price to pay, and I had high hopes of recouping most of it anyway at the 12-day-long-24-hour-all-you-can-eat buffet. With a bit of luck I might even turn a profit. Wow! This was really happening! I was booking a cruise! My finger hovered over the ‘send payment’ button…

“WAIT!!!”

“Alan, you… you’re awake?!”

“What’s going on? Is this some kind of joke?” Alan said, glancing at the calendar.

“No Alan, I’m sorry, this is no April fools, I really am going to book this cruise. I need to get to Australia by boat, and this is my best option.”

“You can’t afford it!”

“It’s okay Alan, don’t worry! Mr Credit Card has very kindly said that this one is on him.”

“Oh, that’s very generous of him. Well, carry on then.”

I clicked the button and my Mr Credit Card’s payment was sent. The cruise was booked. I had my boat!