As much as I hate the beach looking like a dump, I do love a good scavenge. If I was marooned on an island I’d check the beach for goodies every day like a fisherman checking his lobster pots, excited to see what the sea had gifted me. Give me a year and I reckon I could open a shop that would rival any junk shop on the British high street, and with the profits of my wares buy a surfski to escape to my freedom.

Entangled amongst the seaweed and driftwood this morning was a tennis ball, still bright and fluffy; a tub of lip balm, it’s surface factory smooth; and a nice length of red braided paracord. Plus of course lasts nights Rakia, which would surely fetch a pretty price. Where were these objects intended to end up? In whose hands had they been held? I plopped them in to my boat, which is growing mysteriously heavier, and left behind a sad pile of bottles, polystyrene fish boxes and BIC lighters. Let’s hope in the future that biodegradable materials have been innovated and adopted and that submarine drones are collecting up the last plastic straws and COVID era masks to be digested in to a sludge by bacteria whose gases we cook on and whose poos produce protein.

It may seem a long way off, but have hope. That’s what I took out of listening to George Monbiot discuss climate solutions in a recent podcast, such as a Finish company producing a 60% protein flour from microbes in a factory setting using hydrogen energy – extremely land and energy efficient.

Yes, lately I’ve ditched my no-entertainment-on-the-water rule and I’ve been binge listening to podcasts. I’d hoped radio silence would expand my imagination and brilliant ideas would come to me but no creative genius precipitated, I only heard a loop of mundane trivia. In fairness I do think I got better at zoning out and being at peace with myself, and I didn’t go insane.

Other podcasts I like are: The Penguin Podcast, Hidden Brain, 80,000 Hours with Rob Wiblin, Navigating Consciousness with Rupert Sheldrake, Never Strays Far, Living Adventurously with Alastair Humphreys, The Adventure Podcast and DIDs (of course). Recommendations in the comments please!

I’d stared at the map trying to work out a route through the islands for way too long, and decided to go out to Mljet. Darko and Ivana had said it was the most beautiful island in Croatia. 23 miles long and 2 wide with a ridge of hills running down its spine, it’s a sliver of rock covered in pristine forest with less than 1000 people living there.

I got across alright and spent the day paddling along the northern side to the most western tip where I’d seen there was a bunker in which I planned to hunker from the incoming storm. I saw a few goats and stopped in Sobra, the main town where the ferry runs to (an option for me if I got stuck there), and had bread, cheese and pickled peppers sitting in the sun on the slipway wall.

The wind picked up and I felt irritable, perhaps because I was already a little anxious about getting off this island, or perhaps because my sugars were low, which I found out when I got off the water and tested (my dexcom wasn’t working).

After 30 Kms of pretty much continuous rocks I was lucky to find a small beach near to the bunker. Outside the tunnel entrance was a small building, it’s dusty floor empty apart from a couple of engines, and it was here that I pitched my tent.