I’m finally back home, after several days of waiting and travelling. Now is the time to take stock, reflect on the expedition and on the experience. By far the most dramatic part of my stay on Rockall was weathering the severe weather overnight on Tuesday 1 July.



The forecast had predicted wind speeds of 40mph, with gusts of 51mph, peaking around 0100hrs early that Tuesday morning. I had an anemometer with me: it broke that night, but as the storm mounted late on Monday night, it recorded a maximum speed of 47mph and a gust of 55 mph - which is Force 9 to 10 on the Beaufort scale (strong gale to storm force), three hours before the predicted peak!

With the sea spraying across my RockPod survival pod, secured on a rock ledge fifteen metres above sea level, I had to have all my hatches closed tight. During the night the wind turbine fully charged the battery, so its charge controller dumped the excess power as heat into the pod. With the hatches shut, the internal temperature rapidly built up, hitting over thirty degrees centigrade.



With darkness outside, I couldn’t see the sea state. I just had to lie there and wait. The noise of the wind and the constant spray meant I got no sleep, and at around 0300hrs a wave hit the pod hard. The RockPod and I were physically shunted about a foot to the side, with a thankfully rapid rebound to somewhere near our original position.



I was scared, and seriously thought that if another large or bigger wave hit, the ratchet straps or fixings could fail. I spent the rest of the night lying in the dark, jumping every time the pod was sprayed or hit by smaller waves, and waiting for the conditions to calm. But that, thankfully, was the biggest to hit.



Nick Hancock, a chartered surveyor from Edinburgh, with his homemade RockPod on Harris, before his first occupation attempt in 2013. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod Photograph: Murdo MacLeod

At first light, I checked that all the straps were still connected to the rock and waited until the weather had calmed sufficiently for me to make a proper inspection. There was seaweed all over the pod and barrels, the rock had been scrubbed clean of the guano left by the birds, and a nest above me, just below the summit, was gone!



Moving around the RockPod, I retightened some of the straps which had become slack and realised that four barrels of kit and supplies were missing: I had lost my climbing hardwear and buoyancy aid and - more seriously - quite a bit of food. (I should say that in anticipation of the storm I had brought as much food into the pod as would comfortably fit, and so was left with more than had I not taken that precaution.)

So I had enough food remaining to get me to over fifty days if I was frugal, but would struggle to reach sixty without losing the strength I would need for lowering the pod and my kit at the end of the expedition.



A visual inspection of the pod suggested it was structurally fine but I couldn’t inspect the back plates to the fixing points as they were covered over. I became worried that the pod may not survive another similar or more severe weather episode.

One of the rock fixings had bent and with the majority of the others being almost twenty years old, I was not entirely confident that they would survive either.

I spoke to my support team and the coastguard to get a long range forecast, as if there was to be severe weather in the next couple of weeks, I would have had to consider evacuating immediately. Next I spoke to Kilda Cruises to ask when they could get me off the rock, before my food ran out; because they are a commercial charter company, they have a full diary of jobs.

They confirmed that they could move a charter, but that it would mean coming off Rockall the following week, just before I achieved the occupation records. This was not ideal, but I decided it was better to get off when I could rather than push my luck and get stuck.



However, the forecast wasn’t great for that date and they were able to move another charter which meant that they would come off shortly after I achieved the records.



In the end the actual evacuation date was a balance between available food, boat availability and the weather and although this meant I would not reach my target of sixty days, I would still be able to beat both the 40 day solo (set by yachtsman Tom McClean in 1985) and the 42 day group occupation records (set by Greenpeace activists in 1997).



Achieving the records was amazing after five years of planning. I celebrated with a tiny bottle of champagne, which helped me sleep, and received a message of congratulations from one of the Greenpeace occupation team. In addition, the total amount I’d raised for Help for Heroes took a significant jump upwards once I had passed the records.



My final few days on Rockall were spent dismantling and packing up the wind turbine and the remainder of my kit. As I didn’t want to leave anything but the permanent fixings on Rockall, I had a lot more equipment inside the pod when it was lowered than when it went onto Rockall, but the weight was less of an issue for lowering than lifting.

Orca 3 arrived on Saturday 19 July, at around midday, after radio-ing me from nine miles out so that I could prepare and release the last of the straps holding the pod to the rock and pour away my remaining fresh water.



Indeed, conditions were calm enough to allow a TV cameraman to land and climb up to Hall’s Ledge - my home for the last 45 days, so we could record the first interview on Rockall before I left the rock, climbing down and jumping into the sea at the base of cliff, before climbing aboard the boat for the journey back to shore.



After a long journey back, with a stop-over at St Kilda, it was brilliant to see my little boy Freddie jumping around excitedly on the quay and to hug my wife Pamela on Sunday. After the boat was unloaded and interviews complete, we retired to a hotel for my first shower since 5 June, and a lovely evening back with my family in a little bit of luxury.



• The date of the Orca 3 arrival at Rockall has been corrected to 19 July