near miss

We arrived in LeHavre with plenty of time to spare before the 11:00 p.m. departure on the ferry to Portsmouth.

Arriving at the ferry, we looked for somewhere to store our luggage. None was available, but the receptionists said it was quite alright to leave the luggage in the car and park the car at the ferry; Hertz would pick the car up. This seemed to good to be true, but with plenty of time to kill, we walked the waterfront while trying to call Hertz to confirm that we could leave the car at the ferry.

The calls to Hertz went unanswered, so finally common sense suggested driving to the car rental office to confirm that we could leave the car at the ferry. Of course, we couldn't. We had arrived at the Hertz office with only five minutes to spare before the office closed for the day, and had only nearly missed a disasterous situation.