Expensive Water

I had already driven about 10 km on my way to the harbor for the trip back to Germany, when I realized I left my water bottle in the kitchen. No problem, it isn't opened and will keep. I'll just get another one.

I thought about getting water and a newspaper on my way to check in, but I was a bit late (I thought) and I hadn't made a reservation. Not to worry, there were maybe 10 cars and just a handful of trucks - no problem getting through.

So when I got on the boat and dumped stuff in my cabin (I always take a cabin for a day trip so I have a desk and an electrical outlet to help me pass the hours and so that I can keep my stuff locked up. I had lugged plenty to eat with me, I just needed some water.

I went to the cafeteria and they even had the 1,5 liter bottles I like - at first I thought the price was in Swedish crowns, then perhaps that there had been a mistake. The water that they had was Aldi water - none of the fancy brand names, just "Bad Whatever" in a plastic bottle. Costs 19 cents plus 25 cents deposit at Aldi.

They wanted 3,40 Euros (!!!) for one of the bottles. I wondered if it had gold or something dissoved in it.... I checked out the rest of the liquid refreshments - the prices were comparable, 1,90 Euros for half a liter of anything, except alcoholic refreshments, which were even steeper. I tried to decide if I could trust just drinking from the faucet in the bathroom, but with this being a closed water system I decided against that.

I purchased the bottle, but started thinking how much Scandlines makes on this bottle. Even given that someone has to purchase it and keep it in a warehouse (Aldi has to do that, too) and load it on the boat and pay the extra gas for the boat to drag the weight of the bottles back and forth, this is still highway robbery.

Okay, so Scandlines isn't doing too well selling boat tickets. It is silly, anyway, TTLines and Scandlines both leave the same harbor for the same harbor three times a day both at the same time and chase each other over the Baltic Sea. But is scalping the people who actually purchased tickets for your boat the way to make money? I would think it would be better to get more people on the boat, to tell the truth.

So I'll drink this bottle to the last drop, no throwing away that last bit because the carbonation has gone out.

So I