A young man who hitchhiked his way from Germany to the Caribbean has revealed that he almost died crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Felix Berresheim, 25, always knew that he was destined for a big adventure.
So before throwing himself into his work as a chef, he made a plan to explore the world.
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But with little money in his back pocket, he decided hitchhiking was the best way to go.
“When I finished my apprenticeship, I had this feeling, ‘This can’t be it. I can’t just work from now until I retire’,” Felix told Need To Know.
“I thought, ‘There’s a whole world out there – why not go and explore it?’
“I didn’t have much money, so I decided to go hitchhiking.
“I slept wherever I could along the road and I had a tent but when the weather was good, I just slept under the stars.
“I only stayed in hostels in big cities because I didn’t want to sleep in a park or anything like that.
“I then came across stories of people hitchhiking across the seas.”
Felix became fascinated with the idea of hitchhiking 4,454 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
But he had not realised just how treacherous the experience would be.
Felix began by hitchhiking to Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, on Spain’s south coast, from the village where he lived at the time, close to Trier, in Germany.
He said: “I spent my days around the docks in Gibraltar, asking skippers if they needed crew.
“I was joined by two Germans I had met who were also looking to hitchhike their way across the Atlantic.
“Some of the skippers said I was too late and that most of the boats heading across the Atlantic had already left, which was a bit of a downer.
“But the next day, I saw a boat entering the marina called La Salope.
“They were having engine trouble and the inside of the boat was covered in soot so they really appreciated the help from young people.
“The deal was that they’d take us to the Canary Islands.”
After six days, Felix arrived in the Canary Islands.
But the trip was far from smooth sailing.
A line broke and the sail flapped so hard in the wind that it suffered extensive damage.
And upon arrival at Las Palmas, in Gran Canaria, Felix learned that he had travelled on a Turkish charter boat which was not built for big waves and strong winds.
He said: “La Salope was intended for short day trips.
“Just before we arrived in Gran Canaria, the ship’s captain – who was called Captain Silver – asked me if I wanted to join the crew for the Atlantic crossing.
“His goal was the Caribbean island of Martinique.
“I was ready to say no and find another boat but I wanted an adventure – so I said yes.”
Captain Silver and Felix fixed the boat in two weeks alongside other crew members – Jorma, Fluer, an unnamed Swedish man, and one German hitchhiker.
They set sail across the Atlantic but encountered trouble when they were about a quarter of the way across.
Felix said: “We got caught in a storm and our boat couldn’t handle the heavy winds – it wasn’t built for that, unlike proper ocean sailing yachts.
“We had trouble managing the sails and you could feel and hear that the boat was reaching its limit.
“In the middle of the night, a wooden plank on the port side broke out of the hull and was only hanging on by the lines attached to it.
“In the middle of the storm, with all the adrenaline and stress, I made a mistake and took down the wrong sail, which put all of us at serious risk.
“We couldn’t raise the sails on the port side, so we had to change course and head for Cape Verde.
“That night, a window in the galley also broke, and water got inside.
“We had to steer by hand, relying on solar panels to recharge the batteries – just enough for essentials like the VHF radio, wind sensor, and one small fridge.”
“After a few days of sailing like Columbus, as we joked, we finally reached Cape Verde.”
The crew spent another two weeks in Cape Verde, an island country west of Africa in the centre of the Atlantic Ocean.
Captain Silver had estimated it would take around 14 to 18 days to reach Martinique after they fixed the yacht.
Felix said: “During that final crossing, more problems came up.
“Our generator failed multiple times, so again, we had to steer by hand and had only minimal electricity.
“So many things went wrong that I ended up writing an entire book just about that Atlantic crossing.”
It took 23 days to reach the island of Martinique, and Felix soon continued with his hitchhiking journey.
He met a couple who allowed him to stay inside a cabin on their boat and he enjoyed island hopping across the Caribbean.
He visited Antigua, Barbuda, the Dominican Republic, the British Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas before he touched down in Florida, US.
Felix said: “I spent some time in the US.
“After about nine months, I started feeling a bit homesick.
“In the end, I just thought, ‘Why not go home?’”
Felix, who travelled across the Atlantic in 2019 and now lives on the island of Sylt, in the Frisian archipelago, Germany, has fond memories of his experience.
Despite the danger he faced, and the moments where he feared the worst, he sees the experience an an adventure of a lifetime.
His book – A Spark of Freedom: The Curse of La Salope – was published in November 2024.
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