OMG blog time I says to myself. Thought I was up to date, but hey - no it has been a while. Good news is that Jamie was able to sort out my camera; he’s the clever one of the family, he also sorted out some of our computer problems too. So I can now take photos and explore my creative side, feels great. Jamie took 429 photos during the week that he was with us (I must take more I suppose) so I have put some of them in the Gallery as there are a few more of us which happens when we have guests.

It was wonderful having my brother on board Ta-b for a week. We started off by meeting up with Excellence and Royal Blue II at Solta island the first night. Fourteen ashore for an awesome Greek dinner, made for a memorable evening and it was good to connect with everyone before they moved south. We were heading north, to met up with friends on Awatea as we had planned to travel together for a while.

We took the inland water way up to Skradin which was gorgeous. We had to go under two bridges; we took our hats off to Awatea as their mast so very nearly touched both of them, they are taller than us ☺ The next day we all took a boat up to the waterfalls at Krka and also to the Basilica island monastry, both of which were spectacular. We ended up spending five nights together, had a ton of fun sailing, checking out anchorages, sharing sundowners and meals on each others boats, and exploring ashore.

On our way back to Trigor we stopped at the Blue Lagoon where Jamie treated us to a delicious dinner ashore, must admit the water is a stunning turquoise and it is worth checking out Krknjas. Then sadly it was Jamie’s last night, we managed to send him off with a party as there were five FYR boats in town and we had a fantastic dinner at Alka restaurant which we would recommend.

No sooner had we said goodbye to one guest, but we picked up another two. This time it was a girlfriend who I raced with in Sun Peaks, and a friend of hers, for a couple of days. We took them to Vela Luka on Korcula where we met up with friends of theirs, a delightful couple, who introduced us to local food and wine at one of their favorite restaurants - the local squid is the best.

Then it was off to Vis, both Vis town and Komiza were well worth visiting, and onto Lastovo. There is a national park on the west coast of Lastovo which was stunning and we met up with Kintukani and Awatea for our last few days with each other in Skrivena. It was a beautiful quiet spot with a wonderful restaurant where we splashed out on an excellent meal together . We took a tour around the island with Awatea and saw how more than half of the island’s trees were lost due to a love stricken guy who set fire to them – so sad. It was here that our generator packed up, an electrical problem, but as we are splashing out on a new one in Gibraltar we are not getting it fixed. We use if for making water, laundry and cooking. Soooo salads, dinners ashore and going into the odd marina every couple of weeks to top up, can’t be too bad ☺ I also have a little camping gas burner for making tea!!

Our last island in Croatia was Mljet, one of our favorites. Another national park with two inland lagoons and an island monastry; you could rent bikes and kayaks to spend the day exploring the lagoons which were beautiful. We could have stayed longer, but it was time to check out of Cavtat and sail to Montenegro.

Montenegro like Croatia used to be part of Yugoslavia and was one of the last to become independent. It was certainly quieter than Croatia, although Croatia was not that busy considering it is the high season. We motored up the inland waterway to Kotor with its impressive defensive walls climbing the mountainside behind the old town and checked in very easily. It was a lovely spot to spend a few days and the marina where we topped up, cleaned up, etc.. was very reasonable. We checked out of Tivat and for those who are visiting Montenegro it is worth doing as their duty free fuel saved us a lot of money, be warned you have to book in many days in advance (we were lucky). Also you can get duty free booze via a local café, but you need to give them 24 hours notice.

We picked a weather window that gave us an amazing ride down to Othoni island, just off the north coast of Corfu. The wind was behind us at 25-30 knots most of the way and surfing down one wave we hit our maximum speed, I think to date, at 16.5 knots. Being at the helm it was quite the roller coaster ride, not normally my thing, but on Ta-b a blast.

We stopped off at Paxos and Anti Paxos on our way to Lefkas. Both islands we loved and are well worth visiting. Anti Paxos especially was very quiet and the snorkeling the best I have had in the Med. The scenery was magnificent, the water crystal clear and the perfect temperature, yes I am back swimming several times a day with my fishie friends.

Down in Lefkas it was serious clean up time with free water at the dock while sorting out our starboard engine. We also took a couple of days off to go to Meteora, a world heritage site, where there are magical monastries sitting on top of huge rock pinnacles. There used to be twenty monastries, but there are now only six remaining. Two are working nunneries and all of them have been beautifully restored.

Currently we are in the bays of Menganisi waiting for the right wind to take us to Sicily, probably a two day journey. The Adriatic is a great place and we can understand why liveaboards winter over in Lefkas, an island that is connected to the mainland via a bridge and is very central for cruising the Ionian. The winds here are much kinder in the summer than in the Aegean and we have met some wonderful people on our travels. One family we bumped into knew Edwin and we also knew their son from New Zealand – it’s a small world. To date we have visited five countries this summer and we still have a few more to go before the Canaries, our last stop before crossing the Atlantic. We have certainly still have a lot of miles to cover. I will finish by sharing this quote which I rather like from Dr. Seuss "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."