Who would have thought a three hour boat ride could strip you of everything you ever knew only to be reduced to some type of broke and snivelling animal.  Travel can be expensive at times but those times it is expensive you usually pay for what you get and a majority of the time it is totally worth every penny, like snowboarding or taking a giant swing.

But for the life of me I can't figure out what my $45 actually got me.  I got to sit on a boat for three hours, actually more because it was late. The reclining seats were OK but the rows were too close to each other and if the person in front fully reclined then the person behind would be stuck in, even fully reclined, defeating the purpose and lure of such luxurious seats. 

There were a couple of flat screen TVs showing channel two and three.  A sundeck which was rendered useless due to the wind and rain during the journey and there was also, umm, that is about it. 

Do you want a cup of coffee?  That'll be $3 thanks and oh, by the way, you'll have to make it yourself.  No joke.  I don't know what bothers me more about that, the fact you actually have to pay for the coffee or the fact you have to make it yourself.  Seriously, Interislander, are you that poor that you have to charge people to make their own coffee?  One café made it for you but I didn't bother asking how much that type of pampering cost because I was still reeling from the previous coffee experience.  The MYO (make your own) coffee was from the restaurant/café thing where a hot meal cost about $16 and looked like it cost $0.16 to make while the trays were plastic and the cutlery flimsy.  

Every single temptation to make you part with your cash was on offer from vending machines with phone-dangly things to a souvenir shop and news agency they all looked swish and so was the price tag.  Being a poor traveller I decided to make my own lunch consisting of a couple of kiwi fruit that were free from a previous hostel and a couple of pieces of bread from my Woolworths Home Made loaf.  That'll show them, I thought.  I didn't buy a single thing on that rickety old dinghy Interislander like to call a ship.  I did, however, take full advantage of their free milk.  I searched high and low for signs near the basket with free 15ml UHT milk containers saying anything to deter me from taking any.  I found nothing.  Suffice to say I've never drank so much milk before in my life and have never carried so much milk in my backpack before. I hope Interislander don't read this because I may have exposed the only free thing on the boat. Oh, and the free sugar and plastic spoons were next to the milk so let's hope they don't make you pay for that stuff too. 

Between you and me I'm secretly scared I'll get a bill in the post from Interislander demanding an extra $15 for experiencing the boat ride for longer than was originally intended - there are no free rides or free longer rides these days, only free milk, for now.