Bit of a random catchup blog – we never did make it across the pond for the med Caribbean season – financial crisis hit us as our house sale fell through (we’d exchanged, had the deposit etc but the guy didn’t complete) – currently suing him for £80k. With all money tied up in the house and two mortgages we hunkered down have been working back in the UK for the past few months before the Med charter season starts.

I did get a job as IT officer on Le Grand Bleu (113m ex Abramovich superyacht) but the day I was due to leave the job was cancelled because of finances and change of ship plans!

We’ve just been in Greece for the past few weeks on Vagari – having a very nice time cruising around the Ionian and getting some sun and relaxing before the guests arrive. We’re moored up in Preveza, which is just south of Corfu on the mainland. Nice and cheap and facilities fine. (€300/mth in water €200 out). We spent a lot of time working out here the end of last year so know the area pretty well.

We’re actually quite enjoying Greece – its so different to Croatia, very relaxed and no one hassles you for mooring or anchoring fees. Had to pay once in the whole 3 ½ weeks we’ve been here. Usual job of dodging flotillas and other charter boats, but that comes with the territory. Cruising area is so nice, loads of lovely anchorages, nice little ports, a scattering of marinas for the larger forays back to civilisation…

As expected, it seems far more pricey now though with food and euro rate. It seems people have pushed prices up recently. Even in Greece, eating out just doesn’t feel cheap - €20 to €30 per person is pretty much like England!

Have spent some lovely times in secluded anchorages and small quaint fishing ports. Returning back to UK soon, but back again shortly.

More photos

Back again.

Its been a while since the last blog entry. Since heading to Geece we’ve had quite a few adventures and have done quite a few things.

When we arrived in Greece, we headed to Corfu, and Gouvia marina, which was to become our adopted home port for the next couple of months. We tidied the boat up as we were leaving it for a few weeks whilst we headed off to work.

To get to Midnight Sun, we flew via Athens, and fortunately our connecting flights gave us a few hours to see the sights. We headed for Acropolis and did the tourist thing of wandering around amazed at the scale of the whole thing. We paid for a tour guide and discovered a number of fantastic facts such as:

- Acropolis is actually the name of the town perched on the hill.

- It was built using Spartan war spoils entirely by free labour and craftsmen – no slaves.

- The entire construction of the temples, Parthenon etc took only 14 years to complete.

After our whistle-stop tour of Athens we flew out to Kos, and joined Midnight Sun.

Things went well for a while and it was very interesting getting used to sailing and living on a large boat. The boat is over 20 years old and is suffering a bit from lack of maintenance and layer upon layer of additions, stop-gap solutions and modifications. But overall it is in a good state and handled the weather very well.

The Aegean during August is renown for its strong winds, and this year was no different. We had consistent force 6 and above. Fortunately the 82’ steel racing hull handled waves and weather fine, so we were quite safe. Our first charter started violently with a F8 gale and for the first night whilst at anchor we had gusts of up to 49 knots. The guests were ok but since this was their first introduction to sailing, were a bit perturbed.

We travelled around the Aegean to Ios, Kos, Santorini and many typically greek islands and towns. Santorini was stunning.

Things were fine, but after about three weeks Jacqui and I were having problems with the skipper and felt compelled to leave. It was unfortunate as it was great experience and we were looking forward to the route over the next few weeks to Sardinia and Cannes.

On arriving back at Gouvia in Corfu we quickly picked up another job until the end of the season (end sept) working as lead crew on a yacht flotilla. It is pretty good fun, hanging out in the sun, helping our crews and watching everyone mess up mooring etc, pretty much like our normal cruising!

We’re based in Corfu and spend two weeks out at a time sailing south to Levkas, Mevagisi, Ithaca etc. Vagari is in the company’s home port safely tucked away until we get back to her in a few weeks to put her to bed in a greek marina for the winter.

Its going pretty well, with busy times in the morning where I have to do briefings and maintenance for our 8 – 10 boats before we let them go for the day. We then (generally) motor to the destination, grab an hour to ourselves then Jacqui scouts around for tavernas, bars, rubbish, showers etc before the boats start coming in between 4 and 6. More maintenance, grab a shower then off to a taverna for a group meal (which fortunately is usually free for us in true holiday rep style).

Weather is great here, suns out, warm evenings etc… we’ve been following the weather in the news and it sounds very shitty in the UK.

Will be back 1st or 2^nd week of Oct and are looking forward to being at home for a bit – although I’m trying to arrange an Atlantic trip and Caribbean work for later in the year so it may be a short stay in Blighty.

We should have know it wasn’t going to be easy.

We’ve just sailed 300miles down the whole of Croatia and have been planning our departure. 

We had to get fuel, we had to get a Greek courtesy flag and we had to time our departure so that we’d arrive in Corfu at a reasonable time of day.

The plan was to head up to Dubrovnik Marina, where I refuelled whilst Jacqui ran up to the chandlers to get the flag. This all went according to plan so we headed out to the southern most port of entry, Cavtat, 15 miles down the coast. We said our goodbyes to Dubrovnik on the way by sailing around the outside of the city wall to get the sea view.

Last view of Dubrovnik

On arriving in Cavtat we discovered that once we had completed the paperwork and had officially signed out of Croatia we had to leave immediately and directly out of Croatian waters. The only problem was that the harbour master and customs offices were only open from 8am to 8pm at night, so our plan of leaving at 6am to arrive in Corfu mid afternoon the day after were scuppered. 

Cavtat harbour - small boats not allowed as they try to pitch themselves as the new Monaco!

There were no concessions given by the harbourmaster either – we couldn’t moor on the quay (despite there being room) because they didn’t want small yachts in the town and we weren’t allowed to wait on the customs quay despite everyone going home. We had to anchor off for the night and plan to get to the office as soon as it opened at 8am. This would get us into Gouvia marina in Corfu at around 5-6 in the afternoon, which is ok, but doesn’t give us much margin for error or ability to go a bit slower than our planned 6 knots at any stage.

Anchoring was fun (we were charged £30 of course). It was quite crowded and the bay was deep so we didn’t have much room to swing around. When the wind started to gust a bit after midnight we got up to find a large catamaran nearly dragging into and a lot of concerned crews on anchor watch. We decided to up anchor and head to the quay – hoping that at that time of night there would be no one around so we could slip in quietly and wait until morning. No such luck! The customs quay was patrolled by police officials so we ended up rafting up alongside another British yacht that had moored alongside the harbour wall with a broken anchor. We were looking forward to a relatively calm few hours before heading off when another official came over and tried to turf us both out. After a long and heated debate he relented and let us stay - provided we leave before daylight.

So, 4 hours sleep later we were up again and this time snuck onto the customs quay to wait a couple of hours before 8am and the offices opened.

Back any forth a bit between customs, police and harbourmaster offices and we had our permission to leave. We were off. At 0820 we left Croatia. Tired, a bit bothered and a bit annoyed at the bureaucracy to the end…

Only 200 miles to go now, overnight, probably motoring all the way due to light winds. 

The crew of Magdalus are on constant 24 hour standby waiting for a call from their owners wanting to be picked up to come out to the boat. We were therefore ready to leave if they had to go to work suddenly.

Fortunately the owners didn’t call and we were invited to join the crew for the evening. Everything was very luxurious for a boat – flushing toilets, washing machine, decent ovens in the galley etc. Chris the chef cooked a fabulous meal and we all settled down for a couple of drinks, sailing stories and catching up.  

Needless to say, the evening went well, and by 5.45am with the sun rising we finally got to sleep.

(note the daylight outside)

Its been great to talk to James about the boat and its day to day saiing and management and i've learnt loads. Much the same as any boat, but everything’s larger, powered and takes a bit longer to put into action. Fascinating.

We also met Graham the engineer, who showed me around many of the boat’s systems and Ben the new first mate who is just starting to get to grips with it all.

The boat is so heavy and large that in the bay it was not affected by the swell at all, whilst next door we were bobbing around as usual. This was quite useful for Jax, who nursing a hangover said “I need to get on the big boat so the world stops rocking”

more pictures

What an amazing change the last couple of days has been. We finally met up with our friends who work on the superyacht Magdalus Terzo.

For the past week we’ve been heading north up through the last few of Croatia’s islands into the notorious Velebetski Kanal. Today we had a break in the weather so headed out early from Krk harbour and motored then sailed around the Krk island into the Kanal in the lee of the huge Velebet mountains. The mountains were dark and forboding but fortunately our route north was reasonably clear with moderate 15-20 knot winds to sail in. 

Jax had been in touch with Kelly on Magdalus and had said they were moored in a harbour called Novi Vindoloski. Needless to say by the time we reached there, we couldn’t find a superyacht anywhere. Bemused, we called and found they were moored at anchor a couple of miles away in a tucked away little cove.

We arrived amid slightly rising winds so anchored near to them and rowed over in out little tender to say hi. Fortunately the owners weren’t on board so we went aboard to catch up. The boat is 35m (115 feet) long and seems absolutely huge. Inside it is just like being on land – everything is so solid with a large galley, huge fridges, proper bathrooms, 240v mains power, proper rooms, etc. The boat has five full time crew that live aboard in their own quarters. Kelly is the stewardess responsible for the interior and looking after guests. Jax and her were room mates and drinking buddies back at the Sailing academy in Cowes last year. The captain is James, who we both met and knew whilst there. James is an amazing young man, who at 24 is one of the first new breed of superyacht captains that have specifically trained for the role through the new training structures, a bit like pilots. 

Since the wind was forecast to get up and they weren’t expecting to be busy with owners, we were invited to come alongside and moor up in their shelter. They were tucked away filling a little bay with 75m of anchor chain out and about 6 heavy lines ashore keeping them from moving. The winds were forecast to get up to 50knots that evening so we were grateful for the shelter – otherwise we’d have had to shoot off to a different safe anchorage.

Our boat isn’t huge, but its been our home for the past two months and over the past few years, and seems well equipped and has all we need. Its amazing how small it looked next to Magdalus. We moored successfully and hung alongside them. They weigh about 150 tonnes, so our 8½ didn’t really make any difference.

Day in port today as continued bad weather made heading out unadvisable. Free wireless internet in harbour let us catch up with work, emails and skype calls to family and friends.

Spent time with Caroline who was crew on a large Catamaran we’d met a few times on our travels who just so happened to be in the same port. Went aboard and met their owner, Andre, who is a disabled but very competent sailor from Slovenia with lots of experience around this coastline.

In two minds today whether to continue north or shay sheltered at anchor. Weather reports were mixed with the possibility of high winds.

After much deliberation we decided to push on 20 miles to the island of Krk. We had a couple of alternative destinations in case we needed a backup, so we headed off and motored into the light winds.  

The winds grew… and grew… until we were sailing in choppy seas under two reefs in 25 gusting 35 knots. It was quite difficult as the wind was whipping down the steep mountain faces and stirring up the sea in all kinds of directions. When we reached Krk the land didn’t really give us any shelter and just funnelled the wind down onto us.

Ended up quite wet as waves and spray hit the boat and soaked us and the deck.

We opted for the harbour as the place to moor up, and after an interesting stern to mooring in 25 knots of wind where Jax manfully held on to the lazy line despite 25 knots pushing against the side of the 8½ tonnes of boat, to straighten us up and stop us being blown onto other boats, we settled down and finally relaxed.

Called in at Rab on our way up north. Anchored in a huge sheltered inlet and took the tender into the town for a look around. Very pretty town, with a nice atmosphere. Unlike some other small Croatian towns the place seemed to be more relaxed and had parks, walkways and nice little streets for wandering around.

Returned to the tender to find it was missing. Fortunately though it had just been moved as we’d inadvertently parked it in a spot used by a returning tripper boat. They’d broken the padlock off we’d secured it to the quay with, but apart from the rising panic of not being able to find it on the quayside (they’d tied it outside their boat) no harm was done and our mistake, sorry.

Arrived back at the boat just before it went dark after a long (20min) tender trip out of the harbour and uo the inlet to the boat.

We left Zadar yesterday after Adrian getting his last job done - a haircut. Not too brutal, but a bit short and Croatian miliatary.

Fortunately the Velebetski Kanal wasn't too fierce so after a spirited sail upwind in 15-20 knots for 5 hours we anchored and spent the night in a small anchorage 30 miles north on a little island called Molat.

We're starting to reach the northern end of Croatia with one large set of islands to go before the coast comes west and we reach an area called Istra. Due to its proximity to Italy and a lot of Italian occupation over the years it apparently has a distinct Italian feel.

We aim to meet up with a friend of Jax's who is working on a superyacht in and around Rijeka - shes at home on leave this coming weekend so we'll probably mooch around these islands for the week then head in to the city for Monday.

After that depends a bit on the house sale situation back home, which looks like its going to fall through again.  We'll probably head up to the Venice area to visit whilst we're close - since the adriatic is a bit of a huge cul-de-sac.

We still haven't decided where to leave Vagari for the winter, it won't be Croatia as it is too expensive so we may just sail all the way back down south to Crete in Greece or back to Malta where its cheap.

Whilst in the marina we also took advantage of the wireless internet and bought access for the day (£15 as I couldn't hack any free ones for a change).

Last night after returning from the cinema we noticed Amanda on skype. We haven't talked for ages so it was great to catch up.

Amanda is the girl who came across to Portugal with us on the boat a couple of years ago and became Jax's drinking buddy. She now lives in Brekenridge in the US with her soon to be husband and even sooner to be baby.

She's due in 2 weeks and via the webcam showed us her tidy bump. Good luck. 

It was great to get in touch and hear all about her new life and forthcoming baby. Even Amanda has settled down and had kids. She's literally the 8th or 9th of our friends that has had a baby in the last 6 months!

Meanwhile we're still travelling... 

We've finally found something good value in Croatia. Whilst in Zadar we found a lovely brand new cinema that showed all their films in English, so last night took ourselves off to see the movie "Hancock" which was actually really entertaining and enjoyable.

When we were paying we were amazed to find that the tickets cost 50 kunar for both of us, that's about £3.50 each - a bargain compared to home. 

Well, there you go. Not everything is expensive in Croatia... 

We've spent the last couple of days in the city of Zadar, which is 3/4 of the way up the Croatian coast on the mainland. It is just below a stretch of water known as the Velebetski Kanal which has become well know to us from the weather forecasts frequently forecasting gusts of 30 to 40 knots there.

This area of the coast is bordered by a ridge of really high mountains (2000m) that drop sheep into the sea - thus causing the severe local katabatic and sea winds. 

We headed to Zadar because we've been in an area of "frontal disturbance" (ie bad weather) for a couple of days with some heavy winds and rain, so thought we'd head in to a port until it passes.

Zadar was a great surprise. It had a decidedly Italian feel to it and was actually very nice. The old town is on an island packed with interesting steets, shops and the obligatory ruin, but it seems every evening comes alive with markets, cafes, music and people generally milling around doing the "passagata". 

We've managed to do a few jobs whilst here - we found a launderette, which means nice clean everything, and cycled  10miles with a gas bottle to a place we could get it refilled - so we now have a full spare.

We also found a huge Konzum supermarket like the ones at home, so stocked up on a few of the more unusual things we haven't found elsewhere in Croatia such as flour tortillas, squash, tins of sweetcorn etc. 

All that took about a day to do by the time we'd found where things were and cycled to them.

Zadar Marina (with superyacht Northern Sripit on pontoon)

Statue on Zadar waterfront 

Jax's coffee!

Before going to the bar last night we climbed up a large hill overlooking the bay to get a view of all the boats and the surrounding islands. It was quite steep with about 1km of path rising to about 300m high at the top and afforded fantastic views along the Kornati Islands.

Unfortunately it was a bit late and the sun was very low in the west, so we couldn’t get any decent pictures, so this morning we got up early (around 7, which is very early for Jax!)  and went up again. Jax’s knee is still not great and she still can’t put much load through it, so I ran up and down it three times to get some exercise and Jax climbed it. After this we rowed back to the boat, I went for a snorkel to cool down then breakfast.

Vagari at anchor in the bay

At a nice anchorage this evening in the Kornati Islands. Very remote, just us and a few other boats. Single restaurant and bar on shore with a few motor boats moored up obviously enjoying being ripped off for some expensive grilled Croatian food and wine.

It’s sundowner time so Jax decides to make cocktails from a recipe she’s found for Rum Punch. Major ingredient is sugar syrup, so she spends ages simmering and reducing the sugar to the correct consistency. Meanwhile I’m on deck sorting out some chafe protectors for the lines we have ashore and come in to help. I’m told to get a few things ready for the punch but to wash my hands first. This I did, in the galley sink as usual, unbeknownst to me that the saucepan half submerged in the water isn’t actually waiting to be washed up (as one would assume) but is actually cooling the aforementioned sugar syrup. So wash I do. Only after a few seconds does Jax realise that I’d washed my hands into the saucepan.

I thought it’d be ok, but for some reason Jax didn’t want to use the slightly watery solution for the cocktails and didn’t want to spend another ½ hour making it again – so we had to go and have a little drink at the beach bar instead!

Must be a moral there somewhere…

Left the inland river and headed north to a group of islands called the Kornati islands. This 15 mile stretch of remote and unpopulated collection of 89  islands makes up the Kornati national park. Actually this is just an excuse for them to extract more money from you as it means you are only allowed to anchor in certain places and anchoring costs about £20 per night.

 Ok, its pretty beautiful and unspoilt, but again it is expensive for just anchoring.

We returned back to the boat a bit tired after a busy day’s exercise so after a nice shower and clean up decided to head off to one of the local restaurants for a nice meal instead of us cooking again..

We should have known better as the majority of food in Croatia seems to be very plain grilled meat, fish and vegetables. In fact the menus are exactly the same wherever you go, which can be a bit disappointing. Jax had a large plate of shrimps and langoustines and I had a perfectly pleasant steak, We ate at a basic local restaurant and the food was fair, but it still cost the best part of £40 with a glass of wine, water and a coke. Not cheap. Its just a bit annoying that everything is so expensive, even when you try to eat cheaply.

When we finally reached the falls we were a bit shocked at their popularity. There were burger stands, beer stands, crepe stalls and all kinds of tat stalls catering for a huge number of tourists.

The idyllic bathing in the pools at the bottom of the falls we’d been hoping for were crowded, rocky and a bit mucky. No thanks.

We instead set off on the path that toured up and around the line of falls. This was actually pleasantly surprising and tastefully constructed. There are actually a long line of falls and lakes spread over about a kilometre and the path weaved nicely around them, sometimes going over waterfalls and sometimes leapfrogging the water as it cascaded through a huge network of pools and small tributaries on the way down.

At the top was an interesting old (but working) mill and hydro plant.

After all the effort getting there, it was actually quite good.   

The reason for heading inland to Sibenik was to continue further inland to another large lake and then upriver to a famous set of waterfalls called the Krka Falls.

It was a strange 10 miles, motoring along a wide lake which then narrowed to a windy deep ravine criss-crossed by high bridges, then into another huge (3 miles across) freshwater lake and upstream as far as we could to a small picturesque town called Skradin, where we moored at the marina for the night.

It was a bit of a tourist trail and obviously one of the “must do” attractions of the area, with a steady stream of yachts heading up and down river.

The town is about 2 miles from the falls so instead of taking the tourist taxi boat we decided to set off on our bikes for what we hoped would be a pleasant ride alongside the river.

Unfortunately we decided to follow the signs instead of asking someone.

We were confident we were going in the right direction but the road started weaving uphill around a large hill. We thought, “fine, it’ll drop down soon” but it didn’t. We eventually reached the top of a rather large mountain after about ½ hour cycling, picked up another sign so followed it down… and down… and down… in fact it went down for about 5km ending up at the river but quite a way upstream of the falls we’d been aiming for.

Meanwhile we were quite hot and getting through our water, as it was early afternoon and the sun was ferocious.

We’d actually taken the signs to the wrong falls, which were still another 10km away up and down we didn’t know what. After a bit of debate we cut our losses and headed back up the huge hill again, stopping briefly on the way down at a small store for a very welcome soft drink.  

When we finally reached the town we locked up the bikes and caught the water taxi with all the other punters. It cost the same and actually took us to the right place.

Oh yes, there actually was a nice flat road running alongside the river after all!!!