I'd go for water as I reckon It would give me more chance.
Some years ago a friend of mine ditched his Wassmer (wooden low wing French ) plane half-way between Alderney and the Needles, he had 16 minutes of gliding before he hit the deck and was lucky that it was a flatish day and the chopper was launched before he even ditched. (It had just come out of an annual and the engineer had forgotten to replace an oil seal apparently.)
( He then found out that his secretary had forgotten to send off his insurance cheque but thats another story and he was grateful to be alive ...)
LF