To avoid spoiling the fun for the Castaways still to take place, I am planning to be a little Vague with some of the details of my Castaway.

After eighteen months of preparation and waiting, the day arrived and I set off for this year’s Castaway for Royal British Legion. Our first stop was the SandBanks Hotel in Poole to meet my fellow Castaways in preparation in advance to being delivered to my destination the following morning. My initial thoughts of staying in a nice plush hotel prior to the Castaway could not be further from what actually happened. Needless to say that I did not sleep much that night, although my “last supper” at the hotel helped me on my way.

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With a 5:50 wake up call and a quick breakfast, we prepared ourselves for the short drive to Quay in advance of our boat Journey to our Castaway. With 12 of us spread across 3 boats, we navigated ourselves to an undisclosed location, and then a 45-minute walk to our home for the next week.

After arriving at our temporary home, we underwent our “customs” check of our bags to ensure only items allowed, made it into the site. Once completed we had a short amount of housekeeping and briefing on Knife and general Health and Safety.

After Four Hours of Cutting Trees and Thatching, we had our base, by now I was starting to feel a bit hungry. What came next, I am not sure I was prepared for and I certainly did not imagine I would ever do. As you can imagine, when you are castaway, you have to prepare your own food before cooking. For this evening, we needed to prepare pigeons for the team.

So as not to spoil it for others, I won’t go through all the itinerary, however, what followed in the next week including:

• Game Preparation
• Fire Starting
• Navigation
• Water Purification
• Survival Techniques
• Foraging

 These things all come in handy when we were faced with no kit and no food for one of the days. A hungry day for all.

Although I learnt a lot in the days of my castaway, I was lucky as I was surrounded by a great group of people from different backgrounds and different outlooks. All united by a common goal to raise money for charity and to embrace the castaway experience. Before I set off, I was told that this would be an amazing experience and I would leave with new skills and new friendships. This was definitely the case.

I would like to thank everyone who sponsored me, my family for keeping me positive when I managed to call home. I would also like to thank and congratulate my fellow castaways. We had a blast and raised some much-needed money for the RBL.

Donations to this use can be made until October 31st by clicking https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/castawaysurvivalchallenge260920-jonathanshatford