The creature comforts that help keep you safe and sound

A lucky escape from serious injury this week has reminded me that sometimes it's the small things that protect us from harm on board

Sometimes I find it astonishing that I made it across the Atlantic without serious injury.

Yes, I lost nearly 20 kilos and developed shingles but that is more or less par for the course for any ocean rower. But nothing really bad happened, like getting speared by a blue marlin or slicing a finger off pulling in a para anchor.

I say this because I have a long habit of stupid things happening to me on holiday (or when abroad). I’ve been bitten by a dog in India, had a car crash on a trout farm in France, broken my toes jumping into a French lake and many more. Including, stepping on a sea urchin when I arrived in Antigua after a relatively straightforward crossing. (My crewmate Jo did the decent thing, weeing in a cup to pour over my foot.)

This time, I was riding a camel in the desert close to Essaouira in Morocco when it dropped down dead. There had been no hint this was about to happen. My ride suddenly decided to go no further and we thought he was having a tantrum about a slight hill.

Then suddenly, he collapsed, crashing to the sand with me on top. This particular ship of the desert had taken its last voyage, and I was its final passenger. The owner was so upset. “I’ve known the camel for 20 years,” he said. (The camel was 25, perhaps a reasonable innings).

“You were the straw that broke the camel’s back,” joked a friend. I can indeed laugh about it now but it was an extremely sad and surreal moment. It felt very odd to walk off and leave this majestic beast lying in the desert.

Our Moroccan ships of the desert - but it ended being a final voyage for one of them

I mention this incident not least because I need to get it off my chest but also because it is proof yet again that we never know what is around the corner. It’s shocking when you see something so alive one moment and then not the next.

I also wasn’t sure how they’d rescue the camel’s body from the dunes and it made me wonder about how ocean rowers (and all mariners) feel when they have to abandon ship.

It would be easy after all these mini-disasters to abandon adventure. But I am a true believer in feeling the fear and doing it anyway (although I must confess to cancelling the following day’s three-hour sand-dunes-at-sunset horseback tour, battered and bruised as I was).

You can’t always plan for the unexpected - I had no idea I was about to experience this one in a million moment with the camel - but as luck would have it, I’d prepared a beach bag, which cushioned my fall and maybe saved me from worse injury.

Ocean rowers are familiar with bruises, but this one was quite impressive

I didn’t know that those towels and bikinis would help keep me safe that morning when I packed my bag. But it got me thinking, Sarah Jessica Parker, style – what’s in your metaphorical back pack that will keep you safe and sound on the boat?

I’m thinking of the little things that make a difference, rather than the stuff that’s a necessity and on the kit list.