James Randolph Rogers hand prints historic wallpaper recreations in the English countryside.

I was living in Bristol, in the southwest of England, working in bars and at the college doing learning support for various students. I was just craving some adventure. I had a friend of a friend came to visit and she told me that if you’re in the right place at the right time, you can hitch boats anywhere in the world for free. That sounded like a good plan to me, so I saved up a thousand pounds and headed down.

I got trains to places that I thought would have boats heading over the Atlantic toward the Americas. My aim was to get to Brazil. I’d always wanted to get up Corcovado and see Jesus on the hill. I tried first in Antibes, in the south of France, and no joy there. So I went down to Barcelona. There were no boats there. I was eating into my thousand pounds. That was going quite fast. I was 27 years old so I was stopping into bars and having a drink and staying at hostels. It was part of the adventure, so it was all good fun, but I knew the boats were heading over the Atlantic around November time. There’s a time limit to be in the right place. I was running out of time.

I got down to Gibraltar just at the start of November and found a boat within an hour. You work out where the marina is. You walk up and down. You ask, “Do you know of anyone that is going across who needs a hand?” In this case, someone knew someone and pointed me in their direction. That was it, really. This guy was quite an inexperienced sailor. He was trying to get to the Canary Islands, to Gran Canaria, and he already had two other people on the boat. He also really liked to drink and so did they. I think he was quite scared to leave. We ended up being stuck in Gibraltar for a month. Alcohol in Gibraltar's cheap, so that’s really what happened, we drank a lot. We would go out every now and again and sail around the bay. He would say, “Oh, it’s too windy, it’s too dangerous to go today.” Or he would say, “I need to have something calibrated on my mast.”

It took a while for us to pluck up the courage. Then we actually went for it, we set sail aimed for Gran Canaria. You’re dodging boats to get out of the Straits of Gibraltar, big boats. Then you get out into the open ocean. That first night at sea, I was sailing the boat. I’d never even been on a boat before, I’m sailing out into the Atlantic Ocean under moonlight. It was really amazing. I ended up being with them for a month and a half, these three guys. We had a great time, but I don’t think I’ve spoken to them again. You’re living on this tiny boat, the boat’s about 25 foot, so you’re crammed in there. You get to know people quite well. They all liked to drink, so everyone got quite jolly quite often.

I got to Gran Canaria. They dropped me off on the other side of the island. I had to sleep on a beach and then I woke up and hitched across to the next Marina. I found a boat again within an hour with two French guys. They were going to Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, that was three weeks at sea. They were leaving the next day, so I had to run around town and look for a pillow. That’s all I bought. I called my mom and said, “If you don't hear from me for three weeks, don’t worry too much.” We set sail the next day. They were quite happy to have me on there because with two people on a boat, you would be doing four hours on four hours off. With three people, you can do four hours on eight hours off. The difference in shift is huge. It was like a holiday. You do your four hours sailing and then you look at the clouds and look at the waves and think.

Crossing the Atlantic one time, we’d seen a whale that was following us, so we tied a rope, got the goggles on, and jumped into the sea. This is traveling at six knots and you’re being dragged through the ocean, watching a whale that’s swimming along next to you. A couple of days later, it was my shift and these guys were asleep. I got quite hot, the sun came up, and I thought I would tie a rope on and jump in while we’re going six knots. You hit the water and realize that this is a bad idea. If you don’t pull yourself up it, you’re gonna die. Your mother’s not gonna know what happened to your body. That was quite scary.

When I got to Sint Maarten, these guys offered me a lift to keep on going. They were going across the Pacific. I said thanks very much, but I needed to head south. We found a map. I closed my eyes and dropped my finger on a beach and they dropped me off there. I was stuck there for nine months. I slept on the beach for three weeks. Then I met this guy, he used to be a soul musician and he was blind. He was wonderful. His chauffeur had just left town for a couple of months and he asked if I could possibly be his chauffeur. He could pay me in rum, bananas, and pig’s mouth. I did that for a while and I worked in marinas on boats. Eventually, I got a job as a sailmaker. I pretended that I could sew and I got a job sewing sails — that lasted for six months.

I knew that it was just a matter of time before I found someone who was going south. I was asking around all the time. I’d be traveling around the island, going to marinas asking if anyone was leaving. Eventually, I found this German guy who was going the next week, so I quit my job and got on the boat to Trinidad with him. That was a week. We would stop every night at a different island and drop the anchor. Sometimes we’d go on shore and have a look around, but mostly we’d just stop, eat, sleep, and sail on the next morning.

The last leg of the trip was from Trinidad to Brazil. That was really quite hairy. We nearly capsized. We saw pirates. This is off the coast of Venezuela, a hotspot for pirates. They’re just boats that are out to sea. They’re not fishing boats. They’re not doing anything. And they’re bigger than sailboats. We would pass them every now and again and go as wide as we could. If it was night, you’d turn your lights off. The boat was kind of old and decrepit, so you’d just cross your fingers that these guys wouldn’t come. That was high adventure.

The currents coming up the coast of Brazil are quite strong, so everyone we spoke to before this trip told us that you should not go that way. We were fighting against the current and it was really hard work. The skipper of this boat suggested that we tack out one night into the sea. I refused to do that. It seemed like a bad idea. We had a slight argument about this and then decided to turn inland. As soon as we turned in, we hit the coast, right to the mouth of the river Oyapok, which is the border of French Guiana and Brazil.

We had to sail up into the jungle while it was getting dark. I had to stand at the foot of the boat with a big stick and prod it into the water to make sure that it was deep enough to get through. All of a sudden, you’re in the rainforest. We got lost a couple of times at these little estuaries. We had to drop the anchor, but the next morning, we worked out where we were and sailed up to the village of Oiapoque. There weren’t any other boats. We were sailing past Indians in canoes and people were giving us looks.

From Oiapoque, I got buses all the way down to Rio and then climbed up to see Jesus on the hill. I was overjoyed to get there, to still be alive, and to have had this adventure. Because of all the sailmaking in the Caribbean, I still had a thousand pounds in my pocket.

(This story initially appeared on the Hitchhike podcast.)

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