Thank you to everyone who has donated on my just giving page – we’re over £3000 now. It takes £365 to keep a child with T1D alive for one year in SE Asia so just giving £20 will make a real difference to someone’s life (it’s actually a matter of life or death).

At one time I questioned the value of staying with someone for just a night. My line of thought was that you can’t get to know someone very well during such a brief visit, especially with a language barrier, so the conversation is unlikely to get beyond superficial chat. Of course it’s nice just to chat, but I love deeper conversations that open my mind to new perspectives on life. Meeting people is an integral part of my adventure, but if I wasn’t learning and growing from these encounters, is there any point to it all?

Lauro has traveled the world and it was on his first visit to India that he fell in love with the country, and after seeing the jewelry markets, decided he wanted to be a goldsmith. I wondered how much he considered the future at this point in his life, how the reality compared to his vision, whether doubt crept in. On one trip to India Lauro caught hepatitis, and came close to death, the doctors saying he would never recover fully. It was faith in his body that kept him alive. Every time I get on the water I believe I’ll be alright, whatever the challenges. Lauro pointed out that this takes great faith too. It’s true, and now that I’ve come to realise it, it feels like my faith is stronger than ever.

Well I’ve changed my mind on this. This adventure has made me realise a conversation doesn’t have to be ‘deep’ to open doors to new thoughts, or even cause a profound shift in perspective. I learn just by talking to people from different walks of life, observing how they live and what they think, even if I don’t realise it at the time.

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We had a relaxed morning and went for a walk around the town of Capri, the more touristy of the islands two towns. Gelato, lemon granita, pottery, Lauro’s jewelry, light cotton dresses and shirts. Luxury hotels including one where Einsenhower and Winston Churchill met to discuss war strategies. This is the Italy many people dream of, and you can find it on Capri.

After the usual faff of getting ready that paddlers excel at, we left at 5pm, Antonino and Hari in a double, Lauro in a single. There were some little runs to catch as we headed across to the cliffs of the Amalfi coast, but boats criss-crossing all over the place ruined it somewhat.

After 12km we stopped in Nerano and then I continued, leaving the others to return to Capri.

I thought I was staying with a friend of Lauro’s at Praiano, and waited an hour for them on the beach, but when they arrived it turned out there was no room at the inn. I probably would’ve kept paddling to a wild beach if I’d known, but it was lucky I didn’t, because at 4.30 am I woke to claps of thunder, and ran from my sleeping bag to shelter under the front of a hotel with the bin men. It was an epic storm – for about half an hour the sky flashed and rumbled and a fierce wind swirled around the cove, destroying the neatly arranged deckchairs. We wrapped ourselves in sheets from a laundry bag to keep warm from the biblical rain and I thought back to my night in the Morbihan, glad I wasn’t on a wild beach this time.

Diabetes

After being high all night I avoided carbs and managed to get my sugars stable – success!