When the Dover lifeboat crew realised that I’d been across the English Channel aboard the epic SRN4 hovercrafts with my Mum (when she worked as a stewardess aboard them in the 70s and 80s), they had a surprise up their sleeve to make the halfway point especially memorable.
Ben, the Navigator, looked up from his chart in the boathouse and said:
“We’re taking you out out, Jack!”
I couldn’t believe it. They were going to take me to the Goodwin Sands, a huge sandbank exposed at low tide right in the middle of the Channel (the reason why hovercrafts used to operate in the area).
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the sandbank:
Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile (16 km) long sandbank at the southern end of the North Sea lying 6 miles (10 km) off the Deal coast in Kent, England.[1] The area consists of a layer of approximately 25 m (82 ft) depth of fine sand resting on an Upper Chalk platform belonging to the same geological feature that incorporates the White Cliffs of Dover. The banks lie between 0.5 m (1 ft 8 in) above the low water mark to around 3 m (10 ft) below low water, except for one channel that drops to around 20 m (66 ft) below.[2] Tides and currents are constantly shifting the shoals.
More than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked upon the Goodwin Sands because they lie close to the major shipping lanesthrough the Straits of Dover. The few miles between the sands and the coast is also a safe anchorage used as a refuge from foul weather known as The Downs.
Amazing, eh?
And there we are, landing some six miles off the Kent coast!
Honestly, it felt like walking on the moon (well, how I imagine it anyway). Yes, those are some hefty seals too!
In the little clip at the end, I’m actually floating in my drysuit. I saw those deep pools and had a strong urge to climb in, lay back and float in the twinkling sunshine.
So I did. And it was blissful.
All-in-all, an extremely special, surreal and memorable experience for which I cannot thank the Dover crew enough.
With special thanks to James Clapham, Jon Miell, Alex Geere and Ben Payne.
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