Midges.

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Seems the boffins have been busy when it comes to Scottish midges, but I guess it applies to all nationalities.

Midges are more likely to bite tall men and fat women. 15% of the people appear to produce a natural insect repellent and this has a hereditary aspect.  Oddly fat men are just as likely to be at higher risk to midge bites, but there were not enough male fatties signing up to the study for it to be provable.

Carbon di-oxide and lactic acid are midge attractors and it seems fat people are producing more of it.  If you want to suffer fewer bites then your body better start producing geranylacetone and methylheptenone.

Mixed in the right quantities this is a great repellent.  Already efforts to manufacture it are under way and should be on sale in Asia shortly.  Within a couple of years it is expected to be available in Europe.

The old standby of Deet has a few drawbacks, one of them being 60 percent of mosquitoes can become immune to it.

And just for a bit of cheer peak midge season in Scotland is June to Sept and a hectare of land can contain 25million biting midges.

 

I am not clear if standing next to a tall heavy breathing sweaty fatty  would mean less bites for me, or if the insects would be in such a frenzy anything near them would be dinner as well.

 

Full article here in the Guardian.

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Here be dragons (Part Two).

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I park badly in the main street which is Nayland. I regret this almost instantly when a large double decker bus hoves into view and makes hardwork of navigating the narrow main road with cars parked randomly on either side. Regret it, but do nothing about it, I could have tried to cram the car 4 inches closer to the curb but I will take my chances. Odds are I will scrape the tyre walls and bust the hubcaps on old fashioned high curbs. It only represents a problem to the reckless, they will slow down to a legal limit or hit it.
A recent very expensive redevelopment of my local village saw the removal of fine old high curbs. All old curbstones come from Dartmoor in my imagination and so the removal of them breaks an imaginary link with my favourite locale. .
The old town planners knew what they were doing though as everytime it rains now the shops on one side all flood as water pours over the new low profile curbs. The developers have trousered the EU grant and are long gone, tearing up someone else's high street having pulled the wool over the local council eyes, or more likely crossed their palms with silver. Now the few pedestrians that did care if they were in the road or on the pavement are no longer sure. Be dangerous if the road system was able to allow people to do the legal speed limit but a gridlocked crawl between expensive and pointless traffic lights is all that is allowed..

Thanks for nothing and back to the walk.

 

View map of Wormingford, Colchester, Essex, England, CO6 3 on Multimap.com
Get directions to or from Wormingford, Colchester, Essex, England, CO6 3

Dogs and I have to cross the Roman Road which is now a multi-lane A road. On the other side sits a large converted barn, now some swish commerical enterprise. Traffic was light, we were soon across, that makes a pleasant change.
This bit of the walk starts with a new wooden kissing gate, a renewal and promise of a future. It is good too see things are cared about. A bit of string marginally too short is used to fasten the gate. It makes securing it difficult, but the last person through had made the effort. It is a good start.
An electric fence seperates the walker from the empty field. This was actually a theme of the walk, a lot of low cost fencing, electrified, or barbed wire. The dogs were off the leads and free to wander. Sometimes they might get more than 12 feet from me, but its rare and not encouraged. They are not strangers to leads, nor are they slaves.
Almost instantly I met an elderly woman with a young outlook walking a young dog who was as old as the hills. The dogs name was Reggie. We soon put rural England in it's place (high), "Nowhere else like in on Earth, look a the wind blowing in the willows". I did as told and was rewarded by seeing a little bit of the world as this lady saw it.
Having agreed on it really being a green and pleasant land we chat as dog owners do. I am not sure what the dogs are saying, but it involves a lot of arse sniffing. The walk is going to cover 16km and within the first 50 yards I will have seen 33% of the humanity I am going too. I get about 3 words out of the other 67%.
It never ceases to amaze just how few people you bump into once more than 400 yards from a road. I met none on a beautiful weekend on footpaths linking Suffolk villages.
Oddly the conversation with the woman had turned to religion. While the dragon tale and the OS map were the starting point, the wonderful Ronald Blythe was the living spirit of the landscape for me. Born 1922, a man whose faith is meaningful and informed. He has written many a book about where I walk because it is where he has spent a lifetime walking. His book Word from Wormingford is in my bag as I stroll.
Mr Blythe is the companion in my head as we walk. He has walked every step I will walk, many times.
Dogs and I left to our own devices, we are surrounded by the noises of industrious nature going about its business. Streaks of blue, long sleek elongated bodies zoom by. They look faster than they are, the common blue damselfly, well named. Water is nearby.
Then a gathering of banded demoiselle flap around us almost impossibly fragile, how do they manage?

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Butterflies are in profusion enjoying blackberry bushes by the look of it. Red Admirals are putting on quite a show, my favourite from childhood. The Painted lady, last years wonder, are not to be seen. I cannot help but miss them.
The first glimpse of the slow moving River Stour through trees. I take a well used track to the waters edge. Willow dips low and trails in the water, it literally brings the landscape to life. Water is also magical for the caveman ancestor within us all. Every cell in our body knows it needs water, it is a basic joy.
The River Stour runs in the valley, which is to say this landscape is not flat. It is surprisingly lumpy, in places positively corrugated. The views across this wide valley are fabulous. Winding my way through a field of ripening wheat I can look across a patchwork of fields and associated buildings. Although harvesting has started in my neck of the woods it seems not to have begun here yet.
The church tower at Nayland, is in plain view and will be even when I reach the turning point of the walk in 5 miles time. The church towers remain the tallest buildings in the landscape, commerce does not loom over faith here.

At Wissington, which according to a text is called Wiston by the locals showing a preference to its ancient name, I bump into my first moat as well as small Norman church.

 

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Essex and Suffolk are the English counties with the most moats. Hundreds of them each. Until I read Roger Deakin, Waterlog, my idea of a moat was the thing around a castle. Not so. It became quite the status symbol and would appear around farmsteads or simply barns. They need not be defensive as a good many did not encircle the property. They fulfilled a variety of functions.
If you are interested here is a link to Channel 4s Time Team mini site about moats
In the mid-1600’s a number of families left Wissington and took their Puritan beliefs to the New World and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Religion seems alive in the landscape. I have remained immune to any organised religion but rather like malaria, just coz I don't have it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
My path turns towards Little Horkesley but turns off before I reach this interesting little village. Another day for that. I am heading towards Bottengoms. We walk through a plantation of widely spaced but obviously regimented willow trees, some marked, presumably for felling. Others are saplings just beginning their journey.
In my mind all willow trees are destined to be cricket bats, it's a noble calling. So I don't know enough about willow trees, this much is clear..
Bottengoms is a house nestled in the surrounding countryside. So nestled its near invisible, hidden by the rolling landscape. Horses are in paddocks nearby as I look down upon it.
Bottengoms is ancient and I believe still without mains water. It was the home of John Nash from the late 1920's, the artist of international reputation. Now it is the home of Ronald Blythe having been bequeathed it on the death of his friend Nash in 1977. So I walk the land Mr Nash new so well and painted so wonderfully. I walk the land Mr Blythe writes about so lovingly.
I wonder what the war artist Nash would have made of the barbed wire which encloses fields nearby and hereabouts. My guess, not much.
What an enchanted spot, a nice place to stay for a while.
Part 3 coming soon enough.

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• Roger Deakin remembered (guardian.co.uk)

Identification leads to mystery.

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A small mystery was resolved today, but it opened up the door to another, greater mystery.

A few months ago I was strolling down to where I was working that day. A stretch of Essex coastline. A warm morning, the skies were clear, it was going to be glorious.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and then scurrying in front of me was a bright green lizard, mottled with brown. He was in too much of a hurry to pose for a photo and I was to enchanted to care. He seemed to be maybe 12cm long. I had never seen anything like him. As delightful as he was unexpected. It brightened my day.

Getting home and hitting the reference books did me no good, a search of the internet came up with nothing that really looked like what I had seen.

The incident was put to the back of a cluttered mind.

I get in from work today and Alan Titchmarsh is boring on about UK wildlife in his rent-a-presenter manner. I am not a fan, but his demise by remote control was stopped by the fact he mentioned being in Devon, or Dorset. Where-ever it was, somewhere I would rather be..

Next moment the lizard I had seen was on-screen. A sand lizard, endangered, they live in colonies.

The interesting thing being the nearest known colony (there are 580 recorded in Britain) is about 80 miles from where I saw one.

The internet is a collection of small wonder. A quick search and I found the chap I wanted to email to tell him. The UK co-coordinator of sand lizard counting.

Turns out you need a licence to count these thing. Seems a bit of fuss, but doubt I have broken to many laws by having one run in front of me. If it does get legal I suppose I can fall back on the defence there was only 1, so not really any counting involved.

All joking aside I am actually more excited by this brush with endangered species in a place not apparently previously recorded than I expected to be. Not that I had given such circumstances all that much thought..

I was pleased to get it identified and thrilled it might represent an increase in numbers for an endangered UK lizard.  The chances of seeing it again, given the area I saw it is remote.

My only regret is I did not get a photo, but at the time i had no idea it was an exciting rarity which would be of significance to anyone else.

Here be dragons (Part One)

 

Some places are heavy with history and are weighed down by its significance. Often these places are infamous for a single violent act, or otherwise have an historical mono-culture. Other places seem to wear history so lightly it just exists in the now. These places are steeped in history, endless layers of the stuff, you can breathe it.

This walk is the latter category. Many clues are on the map and a few in the landscape, but it makes you work for it.

Imagine a place that has been occupied since pre-history. That has the gothic script of pre-Roman to denote farms which are still farms today. A Roman road runs to the old capital of England. In the 15th century a dragon emerged from the river and ate a shepherd and some of his flock. Ancient churches dot the landscape. Moats are almost commonplace.

Imagine that same area had links to some internationally important artists and just for good measure it has claims on the creation of The Times crossword.

Just to add to the fun, you walk a border between two counties on two named footpaths in open countryside, which will surprise you.

All this exists without fuss, there is no heritage industry to administer it and no tourist tat to sell it down the river.

This landscape has footpaths snaking all over it. There is a lot of walking and thinking to be done.

A year ago I just missed this walk because I was doing a section of the Essex Way. All the while I had my eyes cast a mile or so further north and The Stour Valley path cut close to a favourite river.

There was a neat circular path to be made between Nayland and Bures, travelling out on the Stour Valley Path and back via the St Edmunds way. The walk also encompasses a King who becomes a saint and the greatest of England's Queens, just in case interest was flagging.

Some walks just leap out of the maps as having to be done. This is such a walk, the only problem is how many times do you have to walk such a place?

The best that can be hoped is to scratch the surface.

While all this can sound like so much guff, there is an importance to landscape history and what you know of it. It is why I am going to Nayland on the Essex Suffolk border and not doing a few laps of the allotment.

Well plan A was to spring from my bed, leap into the car arrive at destination and glide over the chosen landscape effortlessly in a state of oneness with 3000 years of known past.

Ho-hum.

Plan A did not survive the springing from bed stage.

Having not got the early start imagined everything else fell out of place. The GPS software told me i was a mere 5,300 miles away from were I wanted to be. Odd as I knew it was in England. By the time that techno glitch got sorted and the problem of the local petrol having run out of petrol it was 11.30 before I arrived and orientated.

Oh well.

By nature I am a plodder and contemplator. Route marches are for armies and those that follow orders. Add two small dogs into the mix and things go along at a fair crawl.

I thought briefly of the chap walking 25 miles a day for 8 days along the Suffolk coastline, at this moment. He is raising money for charity and had just learnt the handy tip of wearing a thin pair of socks under a thick pair to avoid blisters. I did not rate his chances of enjoyment very high under the circumstances.  Typical local radio stunt. Good luck to him, I am not swapping places.

Since I bragged about heat enough to boil your brains like an egg the weather has been unstable. Warm and humid it remains but rain and high wind has been added to the mix. Not unpleasant as it would be in any other season, it just adds variety..

To counteract such vagaries I packed a windshirt,a favourite bit of ageing kit.

The drive is worth a mention as I travel along Roman roads that serviced nearby Colchester, ancient capital of Britain. More recently the nearby village of Boxted was used to setup a "labour colony". 400 acres of land was divided up into 5 acre plots by the Salvation Army around 1906.

Priory Hall was part Citadel and part packing house for the produce. After two years the small holders were to have become self-sufficient and profitable.

Most failed and more often than not were poorer than when they started. Such was the discontent that small holders felt the Sally Army were not doing their best to get maximum price. Wilder rumours circulated that the administrators were German spies.

Evictions followed and statements were made in the House of Commons. The charities commission looked into it. declared the Salvation Army were not at fault. Evictions continued with no small amount of publicity.

In 1916 the experiment was wound-up. The county council bought much of the land to assist returning servicemen. Other parts were bought by the tenants on 999 year leases.

All this, and a heck of a lot more waits for another day. I continue to drive along a road the Roman legion marched on up to Nayland, where my walk begins.

My hat, my beautiful hat.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and given my hat is out of my eyeline I probably am not the best judge of these things.

It is nothing special, a heavy cotton baseball cap which started life as dark blue.  It is now a not very heavy cotton baseball cap that varies in colour from white to pale blue.

It is worn everyday and has never let me down.

This year though it has not rained on it enough to even give it a pretence of clean.  Yesterday on a walk it near blew off my head and into a pond.  I grabbed it just in time and was mighty pleased to do so.

Today I thought a good wash was in order.  It has been washed twice in its life time, other than the usual downpours it has weathered.  Well how many times do you wash a hat?

The results were disturbing to say the least, the fact that the dirt that came off the hat refused to wash of my hands was a hint that its daily worklife has been a harsh one.

Still I washed it thoroughly and things were looking good until I spotted a number of rips in the cotton crown.  It was so worn and thin in places the cotton had simply given up the effort of maintaining cohesion.

There are only two or 3 tears in it currently and as it blows about in the wind drying I am contemplating the options available to me.

Obviously throwing such a treasure away is not an option, it is all about the best repair method.  I have a sneaky suspicion it is beyond stitching, there is not really enough firm material to anchor it together.  This looks like a gaffer tape and glue exercise.

Some of you might be thinking “buy another hat”.  Well don’t you think I have considered this, in fact, done this.  Over the years I have bought loads of hats, none have been able to take the place of this one.  No matter how I have tried to love them, they are just not the same.

I have actually bought a replacement, a waxed dark green baseball cap.  Lets see if this is a worthy successor, as I will need one before the eventual retirement of my trusty companion which is likely to be before winter hits given its current state.

The magic garden.

Taking a leaf from Proust this was a day which involved seeing with new eyes rather than seeking new landscapes.

Too darn hot for wasting effort, a day for conserving reserves. Too nice to remain indoors, however attractive the shade, it is the shade of brick walls.

To the allotment, the wild made tame, although probably somewhat wilder than others entirely appreciate. Thankfully it is the most wonderful secluded spot, tree lined and in places overgrown with lovely blackberry bushes. To large for most people to want to cultivate, defeating their horticultural imagination.

What the late frosts did not kill the rabbits have eaten and what they found inedible the lack of rain has withered. It is not a place of self-sufficiency but nor is it a temple of neuroisis, a chemical attack on all that is nature. The stuff is given the best chance of growing with the understanding Tesco provides it cheaper.

So on the basis I don't need the food I grow there as much as the wildlife does, they end up eating most of it.

The pond is overgrown, offering welcome shade to the fish i can see below the surface and the odd pair of frogs eyes breaking the surface. The whole area is teeming with frogs but they have more sense than to break cover. The other week when clearing the pond a newt was collected up. The pond in dimension is only a generous bath-tub but it is home to so much life and activity it is barely credible.

I find a shady spot to settle myself, the earth is baked and is radiating heat. The grey soil is uncomfortably hot to hold in my hand. The china blue sky has no clouds nor contrails, a real rarity.

Sometimes such skies seem close enough to touch, fragile enough to crack with a hammer. Not today though, it looks a long way away and has the depth of deep water, a sky you could fall into. I lay down, book reading was the chosen activity.

Plants are sucking up moisture from somewhere, there is a lot of growth and bees are busy. Hives are close by, liquid sunshine stored up for me. This surely is the season of flight, everything seems to be a buzz. Flies are going about their business, some land on my sweating hands. I don't know much about flies but I expect sweating hands are quite a treat so leave them be.

Behind me is quite a commotion. I am sharing a territory with a blackbird. If she minds she is not showing it as she scrabbles about the undergrowth for worms and grubs. I expect she hopes I will be turning the soil for her, but it is too hot for that. I am there 3 hours and we co-exist happily.

I cannot say the same of the wood pigeons. They were happy enough with my company but the boisterous wing-clapping and calling seemed more than was totally necessary. The barking from branches above my head meant the squirrel had accepted my presence enough to make a fus about it. He preened and cleaned himself between scampering branch to branch.

All was well with the world, although no doubts endless life and death struggles went on around me as I lazily read the pages of my book. A book about songlines and dreamtime in the fierce Australian heat. It seemed suitable as the sweat rolled down my still forearms.

Within moments of taking off my shoes and socks i could feel the sun working its heat into my feet. Had to be careful with them, they are very un-used to freedom and the idea of sunburnt feet does not appeal.

Over the years my family have sown and grown on this bit of land, as have nameless others for the 100 years this land has been allotment. Much has been developed around it and older maps show lost allotments as housing has encroached.

All in all a perfect little adventure on a small bit of land I know very well. The aborigines have a concept about the depth of land, that which is underneath. Today I added a little more depth to this bit of land and made myself part of its story.

The Heat is on.

Serves us right for hoping we would get a summer this year.  Typically after what seems like years of mediocre summers, which somehow still manage to break records pertaining to things summery, we get this.

The heat in the East Anglian bit of blighty has reached the point where sitting still is now activity enough to ensure the sweat runs down your arms and back.

Dogs have had further haircuts in an effort to make their lives more comfortable but they still show no desire to do much more than lay in a shady spot or on a damp towel.

I have seen people sunburnt to the point it makes me wince to see it.  The combination of a sea-breeze they are not used too, the reflective ability of water and lying prone for hours has taken a nasty toll on some people.

Now there is a heat health warning from the Met.  Heat and humidity does me no favours at all.  32degrees seems on the cards, but they say the temp at night and the humidity is the real concern.  Given 32C already sounds like problem enough I am taking it easy.  Killing yourself for work is one thing, killing yourself for enjoyment is a different level of stupid.

My insistence of being indestructible has nearly killed me on more than one occasion.  So this time I am taking my non-superman status seriously and giving myself a break.

The idea of not getting out into the countryside because it is “too nice” seems insane.  Still, there we go.  I have a lot that can be done that falls into the “pottering about” category.

Hopefully later in the year the stars will align, work, weather and opportunity will coalesce and I will be sleeping under those self-same stars.

Cannot see the wood for the trees.

Last year it was collecting images of butterflies which gave my wanderings a continuity thread. There is no reason to give up on this venture but the learning process it affords is becoming increasingly marginal.

Hopefully there will be species this year I did not see last year but the majority of the identification will have been done. For some reason I missed seeing the Orange Tip butterfly last year, something I rectified this year. Yet to take a photograph of these rascals as they seem to have plenty of energy to burn and landing seemed to be on none of their minds.

I like trees, the more the merrier (commercial conifer plantations excluded) but my knowledge of them is suspiciously scant. I have secretly envied those that appear to be able to pick up a twig and tell what tree it is.

So this is the project which will inform the next few months stroll, leaves being a pretty good hint as to what the tree is. Trees are patient creatures not prone to flying away before identified and when i go back next year they should be where I left them.

The downside being there are a lot more species I will commonly encounter and for the most part they are going to be brown trunks supporting lots of green leaves.

Rash decisions.

I have the hide of a rhino, the concept of bruising is alien to me.  Biting insects avoid me for more suitable fayre, perhaps the nearest house brick.

Imagine my surprise when a rash appeared on both my legs below the knee recently.  At first this was of no particular concern, I don’t get rashes so this was not a rash.

Itch, itch itch, followed by moments of relief as I scratched, followed by more itching, scratching, followed by raw patches, followed quickly by bleeding.  Time to admit it, evolution had caught up with me and I was dinner for some insect.

I was totally unprepared physically or emotionally for such an assault.  It is not so problematic that I have actually done anything about it other than curse but most certainly vegetation over ankle height is now looked upon with new found respect.

And there is a lot of vegetation currently which fits that description and I spend a good deal of my time involved in it.   We are enjoying a prolonged hotspell in the SE bit of England after rather a late start.  This seems to have compressed the growing/hatching season somewhat and everything is making up for lost time.

The most likely culprit for my rash is a caterpillar which is covered in hairs which are a considerable irritant to many a person.  Never had any problems with them before but this year they appear to be about in rather higher numbers.  In one area I counted over a dozen of them within a 1 metre square of where I stood.  I was not even making a study of them, they were just there in plain sight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1189685/Plague-hairy-caterpillars-cause-rashes-headaches-breathing-problems-invades-Britain.html

This is a report about the type of thing from a newspaper report last year.  While the more alarmist reports would have us all in NBC suits I have to admit its damn annoying if a weakness has been discovered in my constitution.

Silence is golden.

 

Silence is an amazing thing, much more than the absence of noise, it has a quality of its own. Anyone having sat in angry silence knows this is a very different thing to a tranquil silence. The texture of it is such that someone walking into a room knows the difference and a very uncomfortable difference it can be.

We treasure silence, it has long been associated with a deeper level of thinking than is needed to simply function. Museums, libraries, spiritual spaces are associated with silence, these places almost demand it. Theatre and by extension cinema are places audiences listen not talk, rustling sweet wrappers is frowned upon.

Vows of silence are taken on the basis this is a higher attainment than talking. Fools prattle, thinkers are deep in thought. We value silence.

Noise pollution may not be a modern curse but its spread is. It was not so long ago in the scheme of things when the internal combustion engine first appeared and the ability of noise to travel in a manner it previously did not was born.

There is a gulf of difference between the noise you create yourself and the noise others force upon you. I live in an area invaded by tourists in summer, the local attractions attract by noise. Noise breeds noise. To maintain a personal sound-scape you either turn up your own noise to drown out that of others or you reduce the noise of others.

Reducing the noise of others on a hot day means closed windows and that is a poor option. Just recently I have acquired a pair of those noise cancelling headphones. They cut out a lot of noise by the mere fact they are headphones and then by clever use of compensating soundwaves it reduces further exterior sounds. Not perfect but an improvement.

Walking in the great outdoors is usually about escaping the unwanted noise of others. Some people seem happy walking along busy roads but they are the exception not the norm.

I take my mp3 which is often only used for audio books at night or during the day to reduce the impact the inconvenient noise of others. Sometimes it just helps a dull passage of a walk pass a little easier. Very rarely does it fill a "silence" on a walk.

I have notes from walks from years ago which continually refer to the sound-scape. Escaping the noise pollution is an essential part. I know I would be happier walking through a silent city rather than a woodland filled with man-made noise.

The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst

 

Or, the significance of the number 243.

The book by Tomalin and Hall.  The subtitle mine.

Donald Crowhurst took up the challenge laid down in the late 60s by the Sunday Times.

The challenge was to sail around the world non-stop single handed.

Donald was an inventor.  He was having his boat built to his own designs and it would be something of a showcase for his electronic inventions.

Called the Teignmouth Electron, the name itself was an advert for his invention.

He was charismatic and soon the BBC were filming him.

At night Crowhurst lay in bed with his wife looking for a way to bow out without losing face.  He didn’t find one.

With this knowledge there are some horrible moments in the BBC footage.  The look on Donald’s face as the interview is over and he looks away, the camera still rolling for a few seconds longer than totally needed.

Underfunded, underprepared Donald set sail with most of his ingenious safety devices non-operational.  Most of the wiring just ended, bare wires dangling.

Nothing very remarkable happened to Donald for a while but suddenly his odyssey was grabbing the headlines.  His untried design was carving up the seas, setting 24hour distance records regularly.  There was every chance this most unlikely to heroes was going to storm across the finishing line a glorious first (in time spent at sea).

The boat was found drifting empty on the 10th July.

Unfortunately Donald was inventing a good deal more than electronic gadgets.  He had in fact made land earlier and would be disqualified if discovered.  But for some reason rather than take this as an opportunity to give up he ploughed on.  Giving up at this point would have been no disgrace, his boat was in all manner of difficulties and other competitors had found the going tough enough to have abandoned the race.

The truth was contained in his log book (he kept more than one).  He was making it up as he went along, or more correctly, making up he was going along when he was in fact not.

The log writing shown an increasing breakdown and obsessions all the while faking log entries of considerable complexity.

He had over-egged the pudding though and it looked likely he was going to win, in which case the logs would be under a great deal of examination and him along with them.

Eventually the world he had created for himself alone fell apart and he threw himself overboard.

243 appears a number of times in his writing.

His best days “sailing” was 243 miles, he intended to finish the journey in 243 days.  Some say he did, his last entry was 1st July, 243 days after his journey began.

The lies he tried so hard to cover up killed him, but he left behind a record of the very thing he sort to avoid.