Rain did fall and my tent was pitched limply beneath a leaky fabric car shelter, but I stayed dry and didn’t really care anyway because this was my last night in the tent. In the morning I got a shock when I saw my boat – in the night the Po had risen up the slipway, as rivers do, to cover the ground I’d been standing on yesterday. Fortunately, I’d left my boat and kit on a floating pontoon or else it would’ve all been swept away.

I was up packing in the dark and set off at about half seven, fired up for a relatively short forty-kilometre paddle to Chioggia, a mini-Venice at the southern end of the lagoon where I’d arranged to meet Mum and Isobel. The plan was to spend the night there, and then I’d paddle to Venice the next day.

An hour later the sun was shining and my progress was good, the power station chimney growing steadily smaller behind me, and I fired a text to Isobel confidently claiming “I can be in Venice by four or five”. I kind of just wanted to finish the job in one hit, and the appeal of a grand arrival in Venice tempted me. Isobel replied, “Ok, see you in Venice”, and so the plan was set.

An hour later stormy skies were drawing closer from out at sea and soon I was engulfed by a rain storm, my progress slowing as I battled a headwind. I hoped it would pass but the hours ticked by and there was no relent, I only became saturated and grew colder. Adding to my frustration, it felt like all the rivers spurting into the sea were flowing against me. It was past one o’clock by the time I fought my way into the Venetian lagoon through one of the three inlets that connect it to the sea. I didn’t know it at the time, but I passed over the MOSE, a system of barriers that can be raised to protect Venice and the other towns within the lagoon from flooding.

High water, or acqua alta, occurs when high tides, heavy rainfall, and sirocco wind combine, and it’s happening more often as climate change leads to global sea level rises, and the city sinks. Venice was built on top of wooden piles driven into the clay bed of the lagoon and these ancient foundations still support the city today. But the whole area is sinking due to plate tectonics, and the city is subsiding further thanks to its ancient foundations being eroded by the washes from the endless passage of huge cruise ships into the lagoon. Preserved in the mud and salt, the wooden piles are surprisingly durable, but when exposes to the air they rapidly deteriorate. This lesson was learned in the 1960s when holes were drilled to pump aquifers as a water source for industry, and the city sank significantly.

Despite thirty years of construction and six billion euros, it seems MOSE won’t cut it as a solution. The barriers will have to be opened to allow circulation of the water in the lagoon and to let shipping traffic through, but that won’t hold the sea back. It’s been full of engineering errors and corruption and isn’t popular with the people.

The coastguard paid me another visit, this time just checking I was okay and I passed Chioggia, fantasizing about the warm bed there that could’ve been mine, but with less than thirty kilometers to go, I gritted my teeth and pushed on to Venice.

Wooden poles marked the shipping channel and I was surprised that when I strayed out of it my paddles hit the bottom, the lagoon only a few feet deep. Ever since Venice was built people have made an effort to stop the lagoon from silting up by diverting the rivers away. Today the opposite is the problem – the creation of shipping channels means the lagoon is being eroded and risks being swallowed up by the sea, adding to the flooding problem. On a sunny day it would be great to explore the scattering of islands and the beautiful old towns dotted about the lagoon, but today I just wanted to get off the water pronto.

I hugged the strip of land separating the lagoon from the sea, getting a little respite from the wind and called Mum and Isobel, who had already arrived and were searching for a pretty canal where we could meet up. A sailing boat came by, towing another yacht on its side, which by the looks of things had been rescued from out at sea, the mast and sail damaged. For the next hour, I sat on its wash, sheltered from the wind and a little warmer, but still freezing. A man in a red cagoule stood at the tiller saying nothing, just guiding these two vulnerable vessels into saftey. Written on the back of the yacht next to a grinning cartoon was “Smile”, and I grinned at it, cackling madly at the irony. The light faded and with no lights myself, I was happy to have the protection of the yacht because as we approached Venice speedboats were whizzing all over the place, and without it, I’d be a sitting duck.

Eventually, we reached a point where they were going right, and I needed to go left. By now it was pitch black, but I had no option but to wave goodbye and set off alone, taking the risk of getting mown down. With a surge of adrenaline, I sprinted for the nearest island, San Giorgio Maggiore, just across from the main cluster of Venice. Port and starboard lights were flying by in all directions, but I made it across and with the safety of hugging the land, I paddled along the Giudecca island and through the quiet canals to a point where I needed to cross the Giudecca Canal, one of the widest and busiest canals in Venice. Ferries and speedboats were charging along the canal and invisible in the dark, I really didn’t fancy it. I was so close to the end of the adventure, and couldn’t take risks now. I called mum and told her I’d have to leave my boat on Giudecca and get a ferry across to where they were. By now I was seriously cold, having sat in a cold puddle for the last nine hours, chilled by the wind, rain, and low temperatures, with nothing to eat all day. It took a real effort to think, my brain was slowing down and I started shivering. I needed to get warm soon. I paddled around Giudecca desperately looking for a pontoon low enough for me to get out, but there was nothing. Screw it, I had no option but to risk crossing the canal. I got a flare out, ready to pop if a boat came speeding towards me, waited for a quiet moment, and sprinted across for my dear life. It was about three hundred meters and I paddled as if it was the Olympic sprint final, checking left and right for boats. The luck I’ve had throughout this trip carried on as I survived this game of Russian roulette, relieved to finally be on the home straight to Mum and Isobel. With my phone on 1%, I took one last glance at their location on WhatsApp and set off through the maze of canals. A police boat was docked at the fueling station, and aware that kayaking is illegal on all but a few canals in Venice, I hid in the shadow of a building until they’d filled up and sped off. Right, left, left, right, left, I navigated the waterways, passing surprised-looking tourists and going beneath bridges, loving the experience of kayaking through Venice and not encountering any other traffic.

Finally turned left beneath a bridge, and arrived at the pin Isobel had sent me. Amazingly the B&B she’d booked was right on the canal and had steps where I could get out of my boat. They greeted with me a cheer and I had the best hug ever, so happy to see Mum and Isobel after many months of adventures, and a stressful finale. Even after a long shower I still felt cold, and I think if I’d got out on Giudecca instead of crossing the canal, with no way if warming myself up, I would’ve been in trouble.

We had a great couple of days exploring a rainy Venice on foot and by the comfort of a boat, eating lots of food, admiring the wonderful city, and loving just catching up and seeing each other. Then it was the long drive back with a surprise snowstorm in Switzerland.

So the adventure is finally over. What can I say? It’s been amazing, better than I could ever have imagined, and I’m just very grateful for having the opportunity to have done it and pleased that I took that opportunity. Thank you to everyone who has got behind me on this adventure: Mum, Dad, Isobel, Granny and Grandpa; the numerous people who hosted me so generously, and everyone who read my blog. Also to Jim and Annabel for starting my paddling journey on the Tiverton canal and supplying me with all the kit I needed for this adventure – vaikobi paddling gear, epic paddles and an Epic V8 GT surfski built by Kirton Kayaks – the best in the business. Finally thank you to Ben from Geotracks whose tracker kept everyone from worrying.

Adventure and writing are two things I want to continue with in life, so if you’d like to follow what I do next, please enter a name and your email address below. I’ll send occasional updates when I’ve published some new material on this blog. Thanks, Dougal