Back to the past week. We were port bound till Wednesday because of the strong Bora but by Wednesday evening we felt confident enough to 'cast off our bowlines' and so we planned to leave the following day. We stocked up on provisions and made sure that all was secure then we went out to enjoy our last Porchetta in Nerezine together with Ivan and his family - Rafaela his wife and Paola his 11 year old daughter. We had a lovely evening which added to the bitter sweet feeling which made sailing out of Nerezine the following day all the harder. As Michael headed Aigle D'or's bows towards the mouth of the small port a huge gust of wind hit me in the face and the exhilaration of that much anticipated moment took my breath away. I stood on deck with the wind in my face, bringing tears to my eyes and I tried to swallow the huge lump in my throat as the reality of the moment hit me... this was the moment we had been planning and preparing for. This was the moment we had waited for. This was our dream. And then reality hit... the chugging of the engine seemed a little more distant and knock by knock it grew weaker until it stopped completely and we were floating at the mercy of the wind and currents. We rushed to make sense of what was happening. We hoisted the mizzen and foresail and tried sailing though at that point we seemed to lose steerage. We attempted to connect the emergency tiller but the rudder would not respond so we had no choice but to drop anchor just outside Nerezine and call for help. All this seems smooth and simple enough but it was not so, as one must bear in mind that it was the first time we were out at sea, the first time we put the sails up, the first time we dropped anchor... all those firsts and the fast encroaching rocks together with the ever building bora were a huge reality check and had a knack of bringing us down to size against the vast backdrop of the Croatian mountains. Once we were safe we called Ivan and waited to be rescued. Two fishermen from Zadar came to our aid. We were towed alongside their huge fishing boat and eventually chatted over a couple of glasses of wine and a plate of pasta. Just as we were rounding off Ivan and his family turned up so we opened another bottle of wine!