Month: July 2022
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Day 95: Spiaggetta dell’Orte to Campo di Mare
Coming to the end of Italy, my mind has started wandering to the next thing, the journey to Bari just the road to get there. Yet at the same time the knowledge that this will all end has made me hold on to it, and appreciate it more than ever. With a strong headwind forecast…
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Day 94: Santa Maria di Leuca to Spiaggetta dell’Orte
Firstly thank you to Gaetano who has arranged for my boat to be stored in the University of Bari sports complex while I do the insulin 360 challenge. Bari is about 200 kilometers away, so the end of this chapter is fast approaching. I think it’s come at the right time – my diabetes is…
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Day 93: Torre San Giovanni to Santa Maria di Leuca
When I arrived in San Giovanni all I wanted was a shower, safe place for my boat and somewhere nice to sleep. Unsuccessful, I ended up sleeping on a thick bed of rotting seaweed in the harbour. In the morning I woke feeling awful, my mouth parched and vision blurry. No wonder – my sugars…
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Day 91 & 92: Capo Rizzuto to Torre San Giovanni
Me having a wash is such a significant event that Elana marked it by playing God Save the Queen as I walked out of the shower. An enormous breakfast followed, Elana feeding me more and more delicious food. An espresso and cappuccino got me buzzing, and I learnt that it’s against Italian culinary law to…
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Day 90: Squillace Lido to Capo Rizzuto
July 21st – my 23rd birthday today. I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about my birthday, I remember one year being invited to another party on the 21st, and making my family swear they wouldn’t tell anyone it was my birthday. So being alone in a foreign country is a dream come true for me.…
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Day 89: Prescopio to Squillace Lido
A few days ago a wrote about the amount of plastic floating in the Italian sea. Plastic bottles are a recurring culprit, or rather the people that use them are, and in Italy that’s pretty much everyone, because everyone drinks bottled water here. This seems crazily wasteful to me, but it’s just the culture here.…
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Day 88: Canalello to Prescopio
My boat is getting lighter and lighter as I lose, break and finish things, and realise I didn’t really need them anyway. A towel – don’t need that – just use the sun. Soap – don’t need that, deodorant – don’t need that (others may beg to differ). I’ve ditched my tent after all the…
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Day 87: Saline Joniche to Canalello
It was already roasting when I woke at 7am, so I packed up quickly and cracked on. I’m aiming to do between 40 and 50 kilometers a day, more when the winds on my back and less when its in my face. This should get me to Brindisi in a few weeks, leaving me some…
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Day 86: Scilla to Saline Joniche
You never know where someone is sleeping, it may be very near by. This is the perspective that sleeping rough has given me. Last night I slept sandwiched between two fishing boats on the quay, shrouded in the shadows just metres from people strolling by. The restaurant across the road from me was still buzzing…
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Day 85: Capo Vaticano to Scilla
Although yesterday thought I’d decided on option A – leave my boat in Messina and spend the 90 days back in the UK – I wasn’t very convicted in my decision. I left the stunning beach I’d slept on and followed the coast to San Ferdinando, a small town next to a big container terminal.…