The second week has felt quite eventful even though it’s been mainly just paddling. After the day in Tonnarella I continue with fresh energy, hitting 47km on the first day after the break. It makes me quite hopeful that I will be able to increase the daily distance enough to make a good time at the end of the trip.
The camping over the second week is not first-class but the priority here is the distance and lack of people. Night one I spend behind a break wall in a slightly industrial vibe, setting up my tent on a road overthrown by tall grass. The next night is not better – I manage to find a rocky beach with some abandoned summer houses. The concrete platform makes for a good tent spot though and noone will be able to see me, except for the fishermen in the morning.
The rocky beach isn’t a good landing/launching spot, making it hard to get the kayak out of the water. There is thankfully enough drift wood around for me to built a little rolling ladder for the boat.
The spot still delivers a beautiful sunset so there is nothing to complain about! In the night the swell and wind picks up, which keeps me thinking how my launching will look like the next day. The roar of the waves is so loud I need to use earplugs to be able to fall asleep. A bit concerned about the weather I keep waking up until I check the forecast update at midnight – I should be fine.
Another long day ahead of me. This time I decide to sleep at a official campsite. Both Hodei and Francesco manage to call the owner for me – to check if it’s opened and with good access to the beach. Yes and yes are the answers, so there I go! The day feels a bit long due to a late start but I have a very clear finish point for the day so I just keep paddling. Because of the delay I know I will be landing by night. As I approach the camp I can’t really see it – looking for campsite’s lights turnes out to be misleading since there aren’t any. I have to trace back because I overshoot the landing spot by some 300m. I do end up finding the camp and after landing in darkness in a small surf I realize that it looks a bit too locked up. I call the owner to learn that the site is closed?! It’s dark, I’m tired after another 47km day and I already unpacked the kayak. There is no way I’m getting back in that boat to paddle more.
It all turnes out to be a miscommunication, rather unlucky one. Francesco manages to contact the owner and convinces him to open the gate for me so I can get in. He drives down to the site straight from a carnival event from a town near by. I feel embarrassed but at the same time the area is not too inviting for wildcamping…the man is very kind and offers his help if I need anything else. I can’t wait to go to sleep to rest my sore muscles. Later start becomes a reality once again since I won’t be asking the owner to come and reopen the entrance at 6am in the morning…but hey, at least I have to whole campsite to myself!
I sleep well and I’m quite happy with the distance so far. After 3 days of the second week I already paddled almost 140km. Only thing now is to keep it up and hope for the good weather!
