A gentle RIB-bing
Written by Richard Mellor (Award-winning journalist who has written for The Times, The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller and other national newspapers, trade titles and magazines.)
After we’ve donned unobtrusive lifejackets and sat down, our RIB slowly crosses the tidal shallows. St Catherine’s vast breakwater looms to the left, and hulking Mont Orgeuil Tower is visible far to the right.
Emma, one of the two capable staff members confirms that we’re comfortable, gives a quick safety briefing, politely suggests I stow my cap — “unless it’s on really tight, it’ll blow off” — and clarifies the journey time: a mere 15 minutes to the Écréhous archipelago. She then retreats to the stern behind me, standing by today’s skipper, Josh. Still we inch our way forward.
“Just wait,” promises a fellow passenger who has travelled with Jersey Seafaris before, perhaps sensing my nervous impatience — “it’ll get really fun really soon!”
And boy is she correct: without warning we smoothly accelerate, so fast and so sudden that my shocked stomach briefly considers lurching. Now we’re zipping across the water, skipping rhythmically over waves, then slapping down onto the drink, and repeat, and repeat, and it’s wonderfully fun. “Whoooo,” yells that same passenger’s partner, his arms astride, his head back in glee. I adopt the same posture, feeling the wind rushing past my arms and surrendering to the exhilaration of outdoor motion at close to 35 knots (about 40mph).
Having no problem with sea-sickness, I’ve opted for one of the six saddle-like ‘jockey’ seats at the front — these are, we’re informed, a little bouncier than two bench rows behind, but.
Soon, music starts playing — an upbeat motley playlist that segues from Paint it Black to Men at Work’s Down Under — and we sing along happily. “He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwichhhh,” I warble in a way that’s totally out of reserved character.
By now, all signs of land have disappeared. I spy occasional guillemots paddling along and think how lonely they appear. The horizon is the same left and right: a rectangle of dark blue against another rectangle of paler blue, like some marine Mark Rothko painting. We’re going into the wind now, and I wish I’d bought sunglasses to stop my eyes from streaming.
The Écréhous, with their reefs and seals and spits and absurd, comic-book houses appear quite quickly, and it’s not long before we’re on land, roaming the ‘village’, shaking our heads at it all and chortling that, after unexpectedly finding 5G, our phones have changed time because they think we’re in France.
2 Days Later..
It’s a lengthier trip when, I make for the Minquiers — or “Minkies”, as everyone here calls them.
Perhaps it’s because the ocean is so calm today; rather than skipping, we simply glide along. Or perhaps it’s because — despite more catchy music — being at sea is irresistibly hypnotic. I scan for dolphins, trying to keep my eyes gently alert, and spot silhouettes of distant ferries and beacons demarcating Jersey’s enormous tidal range. And I look excitedly ahead.
Finally, forms start to crystallise, land ahoy, and soon I’m spying Caribbean-like sandbars, bird-colonised skerries and, yes, the dinky toilet cubicle that constitutes the British Isles’ southernmost building. Visiting these vanishing lands feels brilliantly silly, like enacting one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books of childhood. And my phone’s map app simply shrugs, denying that I can possibly be on dry land.
The 40-minute return journey proves equally smooth. Jersey’s southeastern coast gradually takes shape as a descending easyJet plane passes overhead. Eventually St Catherine’s breakwater reappears and then, just before slowing down, we perform what I now realise is a Jersey Seafaris rite of passage: a rapid series of figure-of-eight twists, the RIB almost vertical, the sea close enough to touch. Most passengers scream delightedly; none of us want the adventure to end.