Initially the aim of the exercise was for all the bike riders to Jet Ski the Channel from Calais to Dover. There were to be 3 Support boats and 3 “Expert” support Jet Skiers to assist if we got into difficulties. The Jet Skiing section was totally organised by Micky the Greek from the Leicester Jet Ski Centre.
Shortly before the start date we were informed that there would only be 3 Jet Skis available for us to use, and so each one of us would only ride approximately 1/3 of the way. The other members of the team would be in the support boats waiting turn.
We tried to get clearance from the Coast Guard at Calais to launch the Jet Skis on the beach at Calais. They would have none of it. Lengthy negotiations ensued with Micky the Greek exhibiting his total lack of nautical knowledge. It was at this point that I knew something was not going to go as we had all expected. We managed to silence him and allowed Deano to take up the role of chief negotiator. The outcome of it all was that we would need to go some 10Km away to Sengate, (famed for its asylum seekers refugee camp), well away from the Coast Guard and so beyond his area of responsibility.
When we eventually arrived at Sengate only 2 out of the 3 support boats arrived. The skippers of the boats had not been informed that they would be carrying any additional passengers and so they had brought their friends over from England for a day trip. Non of the jet Skiers were aware of this until we tried to board the boats, some 400m offshore. I was the last person to arrive at the boats on the back of one of the support Jet Skis, and so was refused entry to either of the support boats. We circled the two boats a few times before it became obvious that we were wasting our time. The pilot of my Jet Ski suggested he return me to shore, go back to the boat, remove one of the day trippers, return him to shore, and then to get me back on the boat. We both agreed that this was a good idea.
He dropped me off on the beach, but as he turned to go back to the boat I could see the 2 support boats and the Jet Skis heading off towards England. Some 50 Metres down the coast another Jet Skier was being returned to the shore. As we walked to each other we could see that the rest of the party had got no intention of returning for us. We watched as the group disappeared on the horizon.
We were now some 500m further down the beach from where we had launched the Jet Skis. One of the Mini busses was just leaving the small car park. Apparently they had been informed by someone on one of the boats that we had been left behind. They didn’t believe them at first as they thought it was a joke. However, they had returned to the launch point to look for us, but couldn’t see us as we were some way down the beach. We waved our arms frantically in a desperate bid to be seen by the disbelieving support team. Robinson Crusoe sprang to mind. I even contemplated removing my wet suit and setting fire to it hoping that the smoke would be seen. Alas the bus had pulled away and was heading for the Ferry Terminal without any hesitation.
We walked back to the launch point and waited for a few minutes hoping that the minibus would come back for us. It didn’t.
There we were, 10 km from Calais, at Sengate, no money, no phone and no passport. I can tell you that Sengate is not the place where you want to lose your identity!!
We started to walk towards Calais still thinking that the Minibus would return. After about 40 minutes I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t coming back. In fact, at this point I believed that they really didn’t know that anybody was missing. So why should they come back.
My fellow “Ship Wrecker” was a Dean White. I had never even met him before. He had travelled over from England at the request of Micky the Greek to act as a support Jet Skier. He was none too impressed with how things were going. He had just spent the night roughing it in the seven and a half Tonner, because old Micky hadn’t arranged any accommodation for him. He was sympathetic to my plight though as he kept reminding me that I really should be jet Skiing as it was a part of the sponsorship requirement. He would throw in the odd bona fide word from the Oxford English Dictionary to accompany many expletives he used to describe one Micky the Greek.
Once I had resigned myself to a long walk I stopped and took off my wet suit, replacing my life jacket to try and retain some credibility as I started to hitch a lift. I suggested to Dean that he ought to do the same as if nothing else it was a damn sight more comfortable without it on. Unfortunately for Dean he hadn’t had the foresight to don a pair of shorts under his wet suit as I had done earlier.
Cars past us without slowing. I was under no illusion that we really were not ideal prey for a lonely motorist. I know that I certainly would not have stopped to pick us up, if I had been behind the wheel. I reassured Dean that a Surfer may stop or indeed someone who had been in a similar position themselves. When I said it I knew that it wasn’t really plausible, but I needed to take control of the situation, I needed to let Dean know that we weren’t going to perish, that we would get home, one day at least.
After about 30 minutes I too was becoming concerned. I needed to change my approach. I needed to appeal to the humanity of the motorist. I turned and faced the oncoming traffic. As the cars approached, I held out one hand to signal the need for a lift and I placed the other on my heart with a begging expression twisted onto my face. The first few cars sped past, but as they did so they lifted their hand off the wheel acknowledging that they had at least seen me. Eventually a BMW pulled over. I used my best French,
“Je Voudrais aller a Port de Calais” It was simple to me, surely, he would understand that, but alas he didn’t. I kept repeating it stressing different parts of the sentence even trying to say it with a French accent. It was to no avail. He made some attempt to clear the debris on the front passenger seat, this was a clear invitation to me that he would take us somewhere at least. We jumped in before he had chance to change his mind.
He drove off in the general direction of Calais. Once I was happy that he wasn’t taking us back to Sengate I tried once again, “Je Voudrais aller a Port de Calais.” He still didn’t understand. I repeated it multiple times. I was sure that I was right. Having spent the last 5 months studying French with my comprehensive set of 8 CDs by Michel Thomas, I felt confident. Eventually he stopped the car pointed to the door, opened it and made it clear that we should leave. Later I discovered that perhaps my poor pronunciation of the word “Port”, may have led him to believe that I wanted to get out of the door, (French for door being Porte), rather than go to the Port. As we stood on the side of the road, he drove off heading for Calais. Once again Dean’s expletives flowed with remarkable ease.
We were now only about 1.5km from the Coast Guard. We legged it the rest of the way without incident.
On arriving at the Coast Guards office, I rang the doorbell. Luckily the same guard who we had been speaking to in the morning opened the door. When he saw me the look on his face turned to panic. He was obviously thinking that something terrible had happened. At first, he didn’t want to know me. After all he had advised us to go out of sight, surely, we couldn’t be coming back with a problem. I managed to convince him that we needed help, but not the sort of help he feared.
We entered the offices and communicated as best we could, using sign language, interspersed with the odd bit of Michel Thomas. I knew when we had got the message through, because they couldn’t stop laughing. He picked up the phone and made several phone calls, each time pausing to laugh in unison with the person at the other end of the line. Phone call after phone call, each one pulled from a list of emergency numbers posted on a sheet next to his desk. None of the calls bore any fruit. The last number on his agenda was the British Embassy in Paris. They wanted our details. We scribbled them down on a piece of paper. When he asked me for my occupation I declined to put “Mushroom Farmer” as I thought we were in enough trouble already!!!
The British Embassy gave the clearance necessary. He then phoned P&O who promised to send a representative in 5 minutes to collect us. Some 45 minutes passed without any sign. Then the doorbell rang, they let her in and once again we had to go through the whole embarrassing story of how we came to be stranded in France with just our wet suits and life jackets. But this was a case of Repatriation back to our homeland. A sort of rescue mission, a mini Dunkirk perhaps?
The Rep took us to the ticket kiosk at the terminal building and blabbered a load of French which must have translated into some sort of summary of events of the morning, because the ticketing staff also began to laugh. During the issuing of the free tickets, (remember please, we had no money, no passports, and no phones), I tried to get an upgrade to the business class lounge on board the boat. Try as I might they were having none of it. They gestured to a door and told us to go.
As we entered the passageway beyond the door it was clear that we were going towards the departure lounge. This was empty. We handed our tickets to an official behind a desk. She smiled, somewhat more than her training had taught her to. Holding back her obvious amusement she pointed to a bus that was standing by to take us to the boat.
As we boarded the bus the other passengers started to enquire what we had been doing to be boarding a boat destined for England wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, a life jacket and carrying a wet suit. Before Dean could utter a word of truth, or more likely expletives, I said, “we’ve been shipwrecked. We have had nothing to eat or drink for 3 days. They have kept us here wanting to know more, asking us questions, and now that they are done with us, they have just dumped us board the next boat home.” Dean wasn’t going to disagree.
A Scouser sat immediately behind us produced a 5 Euro note and said, “eeyar mate, get yaself a coke on the boat, ya look like ya need it.” He then produced another £2.00 coins from his pocket and thrust them into our hands.
We made our way to the bar on board where we calculated that we could just about afford a pint of Stella a piece. We sat next to a load of Essex women in their 50’s who had been on a booze cruise and tried to make our glass of beer last. Within minutes the glasses were empty, but the Essex women couldn’t resist enquiring as to the circumstances surrounding our situation. Once again, I played along the shipwreck theme, well it had worked once, why shouldn’t it work again. I needed to clarify just what I meant by “Shipwrecked” and so explained that it was actually “Jet Ski Wreck”. Once I mentioned that we were doing a Charity event, the floodgates opened, and the booze began to flow.
Several beers and glasses of Blue Nun later we pulled slowly into Dover harbour. I got up to prepare myself for landing. I stumbled and staggered across the room as the alcohol took control of my legs.
As we entered the terminal building, we followed signs for Passport Control. We worked our way to the desk. People’s heads turned as we passed them. The immigration officer looked at us and held her hand out assuming that we would produce the necessary red booklet. We stood and looked her. I could tell that Dean was praying that I wouldn’t try to bluff her with the shipwreck story as this woman didn’t look like she would fall for it. “It’s a long story,” I said. “But the net result is we haven’t got one, what can I do to prove I’m a British Citizen?”
“You just have done,” she said and waived us through. Dean took the wave to mean that she wanted the policeman stood next to her to frisk us, so he stood there with his arms raised and feet spread apart. By now the queue behind us was building.
We made our way to the customs desk and went down the green channel. “Anything to declare,” came a voice from a smiling face stood next to the 1st desk.
Dean replied without hesitation, “a f***ing bad day!!”.