weather, rain clearing to warm sunshine. Wind - negligible, sea state: glassy calm.
Fight out of the lagoon through fast inflow, with little standing waves, into a perfectly still sea.
Slow movement, little progress. Was this the effect of having caught up with support team? an unoticed tidal current? idleness brought on by the stillness of the conditions?
Paddle up between 1km breakwaters and stop for a snack by ruined 1914 fort, water flowing strongly into the lagoon still. Attacked by Aedes albopictus (asian tiger mosquito introduced accidentally in used tyres. they bite in the day and through clothing) so get back in th water and look for better picnic spot.
Minutes later, we are in the lagoon and spot a house on what should be an uninhabited island, inaccessible except by water, paddle for a closer look and see beer umbrellas...closer still and it reveals itself to be an open air restaurant where we are invited in with open arms and helped to moor our boats by the owner of the restaurant, shown to a table, unable to believe our luck. moments later a small fishing boat arrives and unloads baskets of still-wriggling fish. It almost seems as if our desires have coallesced into solid form and taken on an existence of their own. Could anywhere so perfectly suited to what we wanted at that precise moment actually be real?
3 hours later, we have eaten too much to paddle but must go on. Best fish I have ever eaten though. So paddle off past little islands with fishermen's huts (Casone) where the water and the land merge and boundaries between the two dissolve.
Eventually haul ourselves on to the beach at Grado, missing the historic town centre entirely and end up at campsite at the end of a stretch of tidal mud which seems more Margate than Adriatic. Pleasant spot though, with pine trees and wild rocket.
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