The Caspian Sea Ferry, Not Our Finest Hour

Sorry for the silence! Once we got to Alat to catch the ferry I had no Wi-Fi at all and now we’re in the desert of Kazakhstan WiFi is harder to come by….

I now have an update on our ferry trip, which was not our finest hour!! We ended up having to agree to pay a £200 fine EACH if we return to Azerbaijan as we failed to register properly. What a pair of idiots!

The long version is in this blog.

And in the meantime – here’s a summary:

On the 23rd August we cycled to Alat ready to take the ferry to Kazakhstan.

With 12 days off the bike in Baku and Stew’s medicine sorted we could not be more ready to get back on the bike.⁣

Catching the ferry was fairly simple I think, but admittedly frustrating. We had to wait for 1.5 days and typically the dates and departure times moved with each update.⁣ the Azerbaijani ferry is not what we are used to – there’s no timetable.

The frustrations of the flexible timescales turned out to be our greatest blessing, as Stew and I solely held up the ferry for a full 4 hours as we received a very lenient punishment and fine of £200 for failing to register our stay in Azerbaijan. 🤦🏽‍♀️

We waited, nervously for 4 hours awaiting our verdict which could’ve halted our trip. Luckily we only have to pay our fine if we return to Azerbaijan.

Somehow Stew and I received a second blessing when we finally got to our twin room on the ship which had a private bathroom. We were told we had the best room on the ship – we were indeed blessed with a window, so the sea breeze kept us cool at night. Fellow travellers said their room was hot and stuffy with little air flow. We didn’t feel deserving of it after the chaos we’d caused the captain, the staff and everyone on board.⁣

We will be forever thankful to everyone who pulled together to get us out of our mess. We had help from the border guards and Azerbaijan’s migration department.

We really thought hotels register you automatically. A lesson learned the hard way, but oh boy could it have been worse…!⁣