Something happened in the hospital which I found quite amusing. It was 11 am and I hadn’t eaten apart from a bread roll and an oily broth the evening before. I injected some insulin thinking I’d get some food if my sugar levels were going down. When I asked the nurse for something to eat, she just shook her head and stuck a needle in my arm, connecting me up to a glucose drip. It made me laugh that they dealt with the situation in this way. In fairness, my hunger was a low priority, the emergency room was packed. I’m very grateful for the excellent care I was given.

Hunger wasn’t such a problem once I was with Nicola! For dinner, he cooked a pumpkin and salami soup, perhaps the tastiest thing I’ve eaten this trip. The salami came in a tub, encased in lard, and the pumpkin was homegrown. Nicola, I can’t thank you enough, I hope we can meet again when I return.

In the morning I decided to paddle to Genoa. I stayed close to the shore but still felt nervous. I had already made the decision to go home. The cardiologist wants to do tests and I can’t carry on with this uncertainty looming over me. It would be selfish to make everyone at home worry too.

It was a grey, stormy day. The wind had picked up and the sea was rough when I got to Genoa, so I paddled behind a breakwater beside the airport and industrial port.

I headed to what looked like a canoe club on Google satellite. It turned out to be a rickety shed with a few rowing boats and some plastic kayaks. Not suitable for long term storage, but good enough for the night. A language barrier misunderstanding meant that I couldn’t access my kit that night, so I found a deck chair and a blanket and curled up. I was next to the fisherman’s storage sheds and the place was infested with rats. I was pretty cold and didn’t sleep that well with the rats running around me all night.

In the morning a man came and unlocked the shed and I paddled back towards the industrial harbour. There I found the Elpis canoe club, which had some surf skis and racing boats. The club chairman Pietro kindly agreed to store my boat and kit while I go back home – thank you! I spent the morning rinsing and drying everything and then said goodbye.

I didn’t fancy another night with the rats so I wandered along the beachfront promenade looking for a place to sleep. I ended up just sleeping on a granite bench which was comfortable with my roll mat. At about 2 in the morning I woke up to what I thought was thunder, but the sky was clear. 10 minutes later, there was a massive explosion about 100 metres to my left, and I leapt up with a jump of adrenaline. Seconds later another followed and a huge fireball lit up the sky. Hungry orange flames immediately sprang up and crackled. I started running away, thinking someone was blowing up cars on the street, but turning back I saw it was actually a building on fire. In fact, it was a beach club with a rooftop terrace, where I’d seriously considered sleeping as I’d walked past earlier. There’s no doubt that if I had slept there I wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale.

The street was soon filled with blue lights and the wail of fire engines, police cars and ambulances. I was the only person on the crime scene so the police accosted me, but I convinced them of my innocence. Other onlookers soon gathered and we watched the firefighters work against the blaze with the help of a boat that could spray seawater. The whole thing was very surreal and I couldn’t help but laugh at the coincidence that a fire would break out where I was sleeping. It seems I can’t escape excitement, it just follows me around.

I’m now back home and waiting for an MRI scan. After thinking about it, I’m genuinely pleased that the trip has been interrupted. Obviously, I’m not happy about my health issues, but if I wasn’t forced into having a break, a would’ve just ploughed on in the same frame of mind. My time in hospital gave me a new perspective and now I have the chance for a fresh start. Sometimes you need a break and a new beginning to make changes, or else they just don’t happen. My ambition and hunger for adventure is stronger than ever before. I will start the next chapter of the adventure stronger. I want to make adjustments to some of my kit, experiment with my diet, alter my diabetes management, improve this website, learn some languages and strengthen some muscles.

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