During my 50-minute sweat session (interspersed with quick runs back to the sea to cool down) I’m told I have to sample a bottle of Stinky Bay IPA, made by two surfy hop-heads who limit their waste by sending their used grain to local dairy farmers to feed the famed Jersey cows; not buy new buckets and spades for my kids and instead borrow beach toys from one of the Borrow a Bucket Boxes across the island to limit plastic consumption; and visit the Hedgeveg website for an interactive map of local food producers selling from stalls and farm shops. From the enthusiastic recommendations I can tell how glad these people are to call Jersey home, how important it is to them that we all protect it, and how proud they are about steps the island is taking to become carbon neutral by 2030.

I have just enough time to shower and change before I head back down the slip for my safety briefing for the Jersey Seafari RIB trip I’ve booked to the tiny cluster of islands between Jersey and France called the Écréhous for some wildlife spotting. Seafari offsets every litre of fuel used towards the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust’s ‘Rewild Carbon project’, which protects natural habitats. On the 15-minute journey out, we slow right down as we come to a pod of dolphins, who gracefully circle the boat, before spotting seals basking in the sun.

The sandy islets are deserted apart from a cluster of small fishing cottages and I feel like I’m on my own private island. It’s a wonderful feeling of solitude and a break away from my busy life in London. I sit on a rock and watch oystercatchers and terns battle with the gulls for the remains of a piece of bread and then lie on the sand in the sun listening to the gentle lap of the water. But the joy of visiting Jersey sustainably is you don’t have to choose between being remote and being in a cosmopolitan hub – you can have them both. Once I’m back, I head into the capital St Helier for lunch, keen to be around people again. I walk through the beautiful Victorian market with its wrought ironwork and glazedroof, admiring the stalls heaving with colourful local produce and inhaling the scent of freshly picked freesias. I stop for a bowl of Jersey crab linguine, fresh from the sea, at the Pavilion on La Route de la Libération. This place uses plenty of Jersey-grown produce and works closely with local charity Caring Cooks to encourage children and young people to grow, cook and eat healthy food, and it’s buzzing with a stylish crowd – it feels a world away from the beach on the Écréhous I was sitting on just a few hours ago. I watch closely as each new person enters in the hope it might be one of my sauna buddies, because Jersey feels like the kind of place you can just bump into people and spark up spontaneous friendships. It’s a feeling that’s good for the soul.