I need not have worried about being stuck on the beach, but I decided not to battle the headwind anyway, and spent the whole day sneakily lying on a deckchair under an umbrella, pretending I was a member of the beach club.

Lots of admin done, yes I have to reply to emails too. If you haven’t seen, I’ve relaunched my fundraising efforts for Action 4 Diabetes and I’m joining the insulin 360 challenge in August. Read about this here, where you’ll also find links to my donation page. Thank you to anyone who has already donated.

Leaving at 6.30pm, I paddled for a couple of hours along the sandy bay, dodging breaking waves coming at me from the side. It’s a fun game, stop paying attention and you get taken out.

One thing I’m looking forward to about rounding the heel of Italy and heading North is being able to watch the sun set as I paddle.

I slept on a deserted beach with fine black sand that looks like mud when it’s wet. It’s the kind of sand that works it’s way in to everything, including my food, toothpaste and suncream.

Diabetes

Levels are stable and I’ve got a solid routine going. I did have a string of technology failures today though. Two of my blood glucose tester have broken – destroyed by sand and water – meaning I’m down to my last one. And then my dexcom stopped working for no apparent reason.