Seven miles off Jersey is a string of tiny islands called Les Ecréhous. There had been fishermen’s huts there for centuries and in the 1950s they started to be used for holidays. In 1953, my grandfather saw one rock that didn’t have a hut. He went to the States of Jersey and agreed to rent this rock for a pound a year. He put a garden shed on it, expecting it to last a season, but it lasted until 2006, when there was a really big storm.
When you go there, life is governed by the rise and fall of the tide. In Jersey the tidal range is 12 metres. So at high tide you’re left on a 10-metre-by-10-metre piece of granite. And at low tide it’s a kilometre across; it’s like tundra with seaweed and gullies.
It was a massive playground for me as a kid. The adults slept in the hut and we children would camp on the patio. It’s one of my fondest memories. Six years ago, my family rebuilt the hut. The challenge was to get 30 tonnes of gear over there – a tonne at a time on a six-metre rib. Plus our rock is one of the few nesting places for the common tern – which apparently isn’t very common – so there were restrictions on when we could do any work.
Low-water fishing is a bit like scavenging, but the real prize is lobster. We can get it every day. It’s a fantastic buzz. When the tide goes out, lobsters caught above the water line dig a hole to hide in, leaving a little mound of sand we call a scraping. You’ve 20 minutes before the tide starts coming back in to hunt for scrapings. The lobster might be sitting there, sunning itself outside the hole, and you can creep up and grab it. Generally though, you have to put a stick in and try and hook it. If that doesn’t work, you put your hand down and drag it out – a very unnerving experience.
At my dad’s house, you could almost dive off the balcony into the water. He lives in St Clement, in the south-east of Jersey. My granny lives on the island too, so we always spend our summers there. It’s fantastic for the family. There’s a great zoo – the Durrell Wildlife Park – with lots of activities for the kids, and the beaches are amazing. Our favourite is St Brelade’s Bay. It’s well-protected, so most of the time it’s not particularly windy. For food, we like the Crab Shack on the St Brelade seafront or, for something posher, we go to the Oyster Box next door.
My dad was a search and rescue helicopter pilot, so we always lived near the sea. I got into windsurfing at 11, then dinghy sailing, then yachts. I did my first offshore race in 1995 and found my vocation. My job was my hobby. I always feel I’ve got the best job in the world.
My wife thinks it’s a bit unfair that I get to go off and sail around the world for three months. I’m just finalising a holiday for us all in March at the end of the Vendée Globe round-the-world race, which will be a month on a boat in the Caribbean. It’s fantastic – your kids are entertained all the time.
Half the people who start the Vendée Globe don’t finish. I’ve done the race three times and only finished once. You’re not allowed any outside assistance, you’re not allowed to step on dry land and you’re not allowed to take anything on board after the start. It’s one of the most difficult sporting challenges in the world, so finishing third in 2012 was a massive achievement for me and my team. You cross that finishing line and feel like the whole world is lifted off your shoulders.
Sir Robert Knox Johnson became the first person to sail around the world in 1969. It took him nearly a year. It’s a huge challenge. When he got back they had a team of psychiatrists waiting for him. To put it in perspective, fewer than 100 people have done it. About 4,000 have climbed Everest now and around 500 have been in outer space.
In Sir Robert’s day there was very little communication, most of the time they didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. Nowadays we have fantastic comms – I can speak to my wife and kids everyday – and the boats don’t average four knots any more. Mine can do nearly 40. But it’s a brutal existence. You put your body through 10 times more than you ever thought you could cope with.
In the middle of the ocean when you can’t see land, you really understand how small we are. It doesn’t matter how big your boat is – it’s a humbling experience.
• Alex Thomson is sponsored by HUGO BOSS and Mercedes-Benz. He sets off from western France on the 2016 Vendée Globe race on 6 November
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