For our first Herne Bay edition of the year, we got in touch with former Herne Bay’s adventurer Josiah Skeats who updated us on his most recent adventures, sailing the Atlantic…
I’ll be honest: if you asked me my greatest fear, it would probably be water. I did lots of white-water kayaking at university and had several terrifying capsizes. When I arrived in South Africa, having sailed there from Australia, I promised myself I’d never do that again! Yet three years later, when Ben and Jake, two Faversham-based school friends, invited me to sail from Kent to the Caribbean, I quickly replied ‘Yes’, and then packed my rose-tinted glasses.
Let me introduce you to the crew! There’s Captain Ben. He’s possibly the most competent incompetent captain ever. I’d trust him to guide us through any storm, but there isn’t a day when he doesn’t lose his glasses a dozen times. Jake has dreamt of catching a 400-pound tuna, though had no idea what we’d do with it as we had no freezer and only the smallest fridge. 19-year-old Leonie was our scuba diving instructor in Tenerife. She asked if we had room for a stowaway and we loved her spontaneity so much we invited her along. Finally, there’s Sula, our 36-foot (10.9-metre) floating home. Built in 1986 and older than any of us, she had a few leaks and health concerns and was a squeeze for the four of us.
We set off from the Canary Islands on 14th January, hoping the predictable trade winds would fill our sails and puff us across the Atlantic in 21 days. 2,800 miles of endless watery horizons awaited.
Our dreams of a 21-day crossing were short-lived. The forecasted trade winds failed to materialise and progress was slow. One evening we found ourselves totally becalmed. We fell asleep to the flap of useless sails and woke to discover ocean currents had sucked us 11 miles backwards. Hundreds of miles off-shore, the ocean was as calm as the Herne Bay duck pond. Not a ripple in sight. We dived in for a swim, the nearest land 700 miles to the east, or 3 miles beneath us, depending how you looked at it. Several days of this forced us to consider whether we had enough food and water. When Ben accidentally dropped all our fishing gear overboard, we watched it sink through the crystal-clear water, dragging Jake’s dreams of giant tuna down with it.
Sailing can shift from gentle to apocalyptic in moments. One day, gusts of wind suddenly picked up and we found ourselves entangled in a storm. Thunder boomed as lightning flashes revealed an angry sea. I tried to forget our enormous metal mast pointing towards the lightning. Waves the size of bungalows thrust us through time and space, exploding off the boat like cannonball fire and forcing Sula over until half her windows dipped underwater. For all we knew, the closest people were on the International Space Station. I’m not embarrassed to admit I was afraid; none of us slept much that night.
Once the storm passed, we finally found the trade winds. Jake fashioned a fishing lure from a COVID face mask, its resemblance to a squid close enough to hook three fish. We could stop worrying about food and start looking forward to the Caribbean. Over the next two weeks, our biggest challenge was monotony. I passed the time in a blur of reading, listening to podcasts, watching films, learning to knit and playing the harmonica.
It’s hard to describe how comforting that first sight of land is. After a month of empty horizons, the island of St Lucia pulled us magnetically towards it. Finally, my legs of jelly stepped onto the pontoon and I was safe again.
I’ve now got two months to sail around the Caribbean islands before I return to Herne Bay. I’m sure it won’t be long until I’m hatching plans for the next adventure, or just waiting for an opportunity to say ‘YES’ to.