A new Jay Slater theory has emerged, suggesting the missing 19-year-old may have boarded a yacht in Tenerife. Jay vanished on the Spanish island on the morning of June 17, and the hunt for the Lancashire teenager is now entering its fourth week.
The teenager is believed to have attended a rave party at the Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas the night before he disappeared with friends. He left the club with two Britons, one named Ayub Qassim, 31, known as “Johnny Vegas”, and a second man whose name has not been revealed, to go to their Airbnb rental near the remote village of Masca in the north of the island.
Jay left the Airbnb on Monday morning and has not been seen since. Around 8:30 a.m. on the day he disappeared, Jay called Lucy to tell her he was in the middle of nowhere trying to get home with no water and 1% battery on his phone. Most of the search efforts have focused on an area of Teno Rural Park where his phone last rang.
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A new theory suggests that Jay may have thrown his phone into the bushes and then been able to safely walk down the nearby Los Gigantes cliffs to a nearby jetty. Jay may have boarded a waiting boat and avoided the island, the theory goes, The Sun newspaper reported.
Local guide Tami told the Mail that there is a well-trodden path from Masca – near the Airbnb where Jay stayed – that takes you to a secluded beach.
A 14ft yacht, named Maruba, was filmed sailing near Masca beach at the time of Jay’s disappearance. The boat then mysteriously disappeared from electronic charts, the Mail reports, in what is “an unusual occurrence”.
Local rescue teams assume Jay left the main road towards the cliffs, thinking it was a shortcut to the coast, where he was staying.
Spanish police have focused their search on the ravines and mountainous terrain of the Teno Rural Park, with the help of mountain rescuers. On June 30, police ended the search on the ground. But on July 9, they insisted that several lines of investigation were still ongoing.
