Thursday, December 12, 2013

Day 80

My hosts wonderful hosts dropped me off at my kayak and hung around to chat while I packed it up.  By 8:00, I was on my way across the southernmost edge of mainland Italy.  At first the weather was calm but gradually a tail wind grew in strength and and the chop jostled me along.


I’m running out of chia seeds.  Recently I’ve been filling two one liter bottles with three ounces of chia and the rest water.  It’s great energy and easy to digest while paddling.  I found that if I tried to put more chia seeds in than the three ounces then the seeds would coagulate to form chia slugs.  Like real slugs, they’re super nutritious, but have a tendency to slide down the wrong way.

In order to get enough calories I’ve been eating whole wheat crackers every other hour.  With the last of my chia seeds in sight though, I tried today eating only the crackers.  I didn’t have an energy crash, but I was definitely running low.

There are no ports down here, and my research showed me that there are two good places to make beach landings in the area.  The first is in Marina Piazzi and the second in Bianco.  I arrived in Piazza with another thirteen miles left before Bianco at noon, and since I didn’t want to risk finishing in the dark, I decided to call it a day.

It didn’t help that it was cold and cloudy with worsening sea conditions.  I was especially inclined to take it easy on myself since I’ve been a little sick lately.

I found the beach and took out, though after the fact I realized that it was the wrong beach.  The easy beach to get out at was around the next corner.

I found a bar to sit and write at and one of the fellows who works here invited me to shower in his home around the corner.  He’s from Morocco so I had fun trying to remember all the Arabic words I know.

Interestingly, the two different weather sites I use, passageweather and lamma have opposite forecasts for tomorrow.  Once says I’ll have a force four headwind and the other a tailwind.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3097,3098,3099,3100"]



Nautical miles paddled:  11.5

Total since Naples: 264


Current location:  37.918794,15.978143


 

4 comments:

  1. one of the houses you photograph looks like it's been damaged in an earthquake. Interesting.

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  2. also where will you be crossing the Adriatic at?!

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  3. Check out the map under about.

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  4. There is a lot of seismic activity in this Calabria. Apparently in the past entire villages have sunk into the sea.

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