Fed up with painfully freezing hands, I thought about what I could use to make some improvised pogies and found a couple of juice cartons in a bin. I cut them open and slid them over my paddle shaft so that I could put my hands inside, protected from the wind. They even had a silver material on the inside to reflect the heat and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I set off from the beach, people staring at me wondering what the hell I was doing. For any Brit the sea was still warm!

A strong headwind was forecast but I was pleasantly surprised by a still ocean and planned a big day because Mum and Isobel were arriving the next day. Annoyingly I had to paddle offshore for the first half hour to go around a huge breakwater that formed the mouth of the harbor and extended three kilometers out to sea. At the entrance, I passed between two trawlers heading out and the coastguard paid me a visit. They didn’t believe I was going to Venice and told me to stay a maximum of one kilometer from the shore. I laughed, if only they’d known where I’d been!

The last few days had been paddling along a pretty much unbroken, straight sandy beach, and now I finally had a change of scene and a landmark to aim for – the delta of the River Po. Or rather I wished I had a landmark because the low lying land of the river delta was nowhere to be seen on the horizon and I didn’t fancy following a bearing across the bay out to an empty horizon. It would feel like tempting fate to take any risks greater than I had to at this stage of the journey.

I hugged the coast until I could make out a thin strip of land on the horizon – the delta – and then started the ten-kilometer crossing to save five kilometers of paddling. Nothing major, but I really wasn’t comfortable psychologically and started feeling like I was going to faint, or rather it was this feeling that made me panic, and a vicious circle was created. It was probably just because I hadn’t really eaten anything all day, but like every muscle in my body, my chest muscles were so tight that I was struggling to breathe deeply and I began to wonder if my heart was okay. I haven’t felt very comfortable on the open sea on this trip, and I’m not sure why, but I suppose it’s kept me alive and it’s something I can work on when I get back home.

I made it across just fine and as the light faded I decided to paddle up one arm of the River Po because I needed to keep pushing and this seemed safer than paddling around the point in the darkness and having to deal with the beach surf and river currents.

There wasn’t too much flow to battle against and the delta was a beautiful haven of peace and silence, only swans keeping me company. For the next hour I paddled in the moonlight, passing a couple of towns on the river banks and wondering what would’ve happened if I hadn’t had the heart issue in October 2021 and I’d been able to stick to my plan at that time of getting a lift from Genoa to the River Po, and paddling down the river, eventually popping out on to the Adriatic where I was then. All I know is that I’ve enjoyed the adventures I’ve had and that I’ve arrived at a point in my own mind that I’m content with, and that’s the most important thing. Getting to Venice was the first time on this trip that getting somewhere was really important to me. Being forced to stop the trip after my heart episode left me with a strong sense of unfinished business and this chapter has felt like redemption from that, living out what could’ve been that winter.

Back then I was curious to see if I could survive the whole winter, but I never got that opportunity, well until now. Even this time though, I’m stopping more because I want to move on to other things than because winter is forcing me to stop. Yes, I’ve definitely reached the limit of my kit, and without the goal of reaching Venice, there’s no doubt I’d pack this trip in, because it is miserably cold. But with a new set of kit – an upgraded tent and sleeping bag, a drysuit, and warmer clothes, I’m sure I could persist. So on another trip, I would like to test that, to paddle in a really cold environment. It may sound awful but staying warm becomes a very satisfying challenge to overcome every day, ticking off the micro-goals of keeping kit dry, finding shelter, and employing resourcefulness.

I reached a confluence and turned right, heading back out to sea with the flow of the river. It was wider here and I strained my eyes in the darkness, looking for any hazards floating on the surface that could be my undoing. The collosal chimney of a power station loomed up ahead and I shot towards it, still paddling hard just to stay warm. At the next split in the river I turned left, and slid in to the slipway of a boatyard where I decided to call it a day. I was happy with my mileage and it was safer to make camp here rather than heading back out to sea in the darkness.

If all went to plan, this would be my last night camping on the adventure. As I paced around to warm up and boiled some pasta, the desire to get to Venice, see mum and Isobel, and have some warmth and comfort rather outweighed any feelings of sorrow that it was all coming to an end. Plus I had problems in the immmediate to deal with. Rain was forecast and there was nowhere to peg out my tent, the whole boatyard covered in hardcore, and then the owner turned up and told me I couldn’t camp there at all. Ten minutes later his wife turned up and he softened, changing his mind perhaps because he saw how desperate I was, or perhaps becuase the place was ridden with CCTV and for all I know he watched my every move.