Category: Around Europe
-
Day 89: Prescopio to Squillace Lido
A few days ago a wrote about the amount of plastic floating in the Italian sea. Plastic bottles are a recurring culprit, or rather the people that use them are, and in Italy that’s pretty much everyone, because everyone drinks bottled water here. This seems crazily wasteful to me, but it’s just the culture here.…
-
Day 88: Canalello to Prescopio
My boat is getting lighter and lighter as I lose, break and finish things, and realise I didn’t really need them anyway. A towel – don’t need that – just use the sun. Soap – don’t need that, deodorant – don’t need that (others may beg to differ). I’ve ditched my tent after all the…
-
Day 87: Saline Joniche to Canalello
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…
-
Day 86: Scilla to Saline Joniche
You never know where someone is sleeping, it may be very near by. This is the perspective that sleeping rough has given me. Last night I slept sandwiched between two fishing boats on the quay, shrouded in the shadows just metres from people strolling by. The restaurant across the road from me was still buzzing…
-
Day 85: Capo Vaticano to Scilla
Although yesterday thought I’d decided on option A – leave my boat in Messina and spend the 90 days back in the UK – I wasn’t very convicted in my decision. I left the stunning beach I’d slept on and followed the coast to San Ferdinando, a small town next to a big container terminal.…
-
Day 84: Sant’Irene-Torre Vecchia to Capo Vaticano
I’m currently sitting in a beach club sheltering from the sun, trying to remember what happened yesterday – it seems like ages ago! Oh yes, I remember….. Two men came down to the beach I’d slept on and told me it was owned by a resort, but they kindly let me stay on a deckchair…
-
Day 83: Amantea to Sant’Irene-Torre Vecchia
Thank you to everyone who has donated to my A4D campaign. £360 is what it takes for A4D to keep a child with T1D alive for a year, so I’m really pleased to have raised almost £3600 – please help me hit £5k here. The sky was incredible last night. I woke up to a…
-
Day 82: Diamante to Amantea
The coastline is now a continuous pebbly beach with a backdrop of mountains. I wasn’t exactly excited at the prospect of paddling today. It feels predictable that nothing very exciting will happen, and that it will be hot and tiring, lonely and boring. I’ve said before, doing this adventure was a decision from the heart,…
-
Day 81: Port di Maratea to Diamante
Even though I’m further south, the landscape is greener, less parched. The mountains are covered with trees, the coast lined with luscious gardens, thick lawns spilling down to the water’s edge. The sea doesn’t get much flatter than this. Unfortunately a headwind picked up, so I stopped for lunch in Scalea next to an old…
-
Day 80: Policastro to Porto di Maratea
This is the last canoe club for some distance, so I made the most of it and had a relaxed morning. Walking in to green grocer I picked up some courgette and tomatoes and the owner, a friend of Mariano’s, gave me a pile of grapes, peaches, oranges and bananas! I got on the water…