Across the Channel With a Bug and Two Paddles
By Dan O’Connor
Above: Eben after the punishing paddle. Photo by Dan O’Connor. Below: The calm before the row. All other photos by Alison Knights Bramble.
Most 16-year-olds would scoff at the idea of attending summer school—but not Eben Meyers. The young Tortola sailor instead embarked on a row in a small bug that would take him eight miles across the Sir Francis Drake Channel—from Tortola to Peter Island and back—in order to raise money for an instructor training course in Chichester Harbour, England. And this month, after reaching his goal of $2,000, Eben will enroll in the course that will better prepare him for pursuing a career in sailing. A comfortable morning in June would soon turn to a blistering midday on the open water as Eben launched his tiny dinghy Beachbug from the BVI Watersports Centre in Sea Cows Bay. “Going there was easy,” Eben said of the four-hour trek. “Going back was tough; the wind picked up and changed directions, and I was hoping the waves would help, but they didn’t. They pushed me off course.”
www.bvipy.com
JULY 2012
51