It was already roasting when I woke at 7am, so I packed up quickly and cracked on. I’m aiming to do between 40 and 50 kilometers a day, more when the winds on my back and less when its in my face. This should get me to Brindisi in a few weeks, leaving me some time to rest before insulin 360.

As of today, I’ve paddled 3500kms since I left Cherbourg, 2100 to Genoa in the first 53 days and 1400 since I restarted 33 days ago (not including rest days), giving me an average of just over 40kms a day. So getting to Brindisi shouldn’t be too much of a strain.

Paddling with an agenda in mind does change things. Having a target to hit takes away some freedom from me, but I’ve actually found it liberating, because it means I don’t have to decide where to stop. I don’t feel like I’m going too fast, because I don’t have a choice anyway.

I only managed 15kms before the sun became overwhelming and I stopped on a beach, hijacking a lady’s umbrella, who soon turned up and let me use it anyway. There was no breeze and nowhere to escape the heat – even the sea gave little respite. Too hot to think,I laboured through writing yesterday’s blog and suffered all afternoon.

A man came and gave me some watermelon, and then at around 5 I got going, a breeze blowing in my face like a hairdryer. Trains rumbled past on the track that follows the coastline, and I passed ghost towns, the houses dilapidated and windowless, abandoned or never finished.

This southern peninsula of Italy that I’m paddling around is basically one mountain, and I watched my compass slowly spin north. It feels odd to be paddling in a different direction.

It’s safer for me to paddle in the dark than in the heat, and I kept paddling until 9pm. With the darkness, everything become more threatening, and as I came in to a beach for the night the waves became intimidating, my imagination turned a rock into a breaching whale, and I wondered who was living on an abandoned yacht on the beach.

I had a sentimental meal, mourning the depletion of a gas canister I bought in Toulouse that has given me hot food since then. I’ve got another one, but I’d really grown attached to that beautiful bottle of butane. Our last dinner together, a cheese and mushroom omelette, was a fitting send off.

After reading back the blog I wrote a few days ago in which I considered my motivations and the future of this trip, I want to make it clear how much I enjoy this adventure. I used the word miserable rather a lot in that piece. Everyone has a dull or dark day occasionally, and it couldn’t be any other way, but on my trip, there is no escape -it is my life. Plus time is stretched so that a few days feels like a long, long time. I must remember this when I’m struggling, because take a step back and the struggle is very short in the scheme of things.