Being 9 hours on a ferry is the most boring thing you can imagine. There were gazillions of teenage kids that were on some kind of school trip or something, running around and being loud, so sleeping on a bank was not an option. The other problem was that there was no bank anyway!
Being on the boat, I was quite surprised to see that the northsea was frozen over most of the way. The ice formed very nice patterns. But see for yourself:
