A headwind was blowing in the morning, so I walked up to the fort on top of Palmaria and set off at midday, by which time the wind had swung around, but the sun was beating down at full strength.

The bay across La Spezia was busy with a few container ships and lots of sailing and motor boats, so I kept glancing around and adjusting my course to avoid collision.

The wind slowly built and the waves became just big enough to surf. I decided to just go with the downwind, and see where on the coast his would take me. I had a blissful hour of surfing, with the Apuane Alps on my right and an expanse of blue on every other side.

I felt quite exposed being a few kilometres out to sea for the first time in a while, and my fears came in to my mind. It starts as a voice saying ‘don’t think about that’ and then of course, you can do nothing but think about it.  I thought back to last October and imagined a sudden chest pain, my heart going out of rhythm. But I didn’t let that thought spiral, and soon forgot about it. I think this is good practise for when anxious thoughts arise in a more pressured, stressful situation, as they do.

Eventually the waves died and next 15km to Viareggio dragged on across a big sandy bay bay that uncurled a bit more every time I thought I was getting nearer. A new luxury I’ve got this time is a little speaker, and I listened to a few songs which was a good boost.

My rule for music is its only allowed when I want music, not when I want to escape my head, and I’m only allowed 10 songs. When you’ve been looking at the same horizon for five hours, haven’t spoken to anyone and there’s nothing to new to smell, taste or hear, all your left with is your thoughts. This can be hard, but I want to get comfortable with it. The mind craves music in this moment for some new stimulation, but I’m not scared of facing the silence and exploring my mind – why should I be? (If I start to sound like I’m going mad, please leave a comment).

I paddled in to Viareggio and asked two sailors where the canoe club was. They said there wasn’t one, but let me leave my boat on their trailer, and the sailing club had a little shed where I charged my batteries and slept.

Diabetes

I should be happy with an HbA1c of 42, but there was so much variation in my sugars abd it took a lot of effort to keep them in range. Maybe I’m being harsh on myself. With hindsight I shouldn’t have injected a correction dose at 13:00 because for the rest of the paddle I was constantly sipping honey to stop me from going low (giving the sharks teeth pattern till 18:00). I then injected way too much at dinner and has to have a obscene amount of sugar to stop me going hypo. I thought I was going to go super low and had my glucagon ready in case I went unconscious. Scary. After I fell asleep the insulin wore off and i shot high again.

This strategy isn’t working at the moment, but I’ll keep trying for a few more days before I rethink.