Running from the big bad bora We were caught in some scary weather yesterday. We had read the forecast the night before: wind picking up in the afternoon, with thunderstorms. This particular wind is called the bora, and it tends to blow stronger in the northern Adriatic, where we are now. The anchorage we were […]
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Idyllic Ilovik
We landed on the tiny, car-free island of Ilovik. A beautiful path took us from the uninhabited bay where Spacegrazer was anchored to the little town. Along the way we passed stone walls and olive groves. We saw massive spiders in huge webs. One of them was in the middle of a late afternoon […]
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Summer is Here
Swimming Season Has Started Spending a few days in a lovely bay near the sleepy hamlet Artaturi on Losinj. The kids enjoyed swimming, swimming and swimming! Oh, and we had a few ice creams too…
Dodging bullets
Where’s backwards? We have been having some problems finding reverse. Meaning that when putting the throttle back it wouldn’t always engage first time. After getting advise from a friend, I checked and changed the oil in the gearbox and inspected the throttle cables. However, the problem didn’t go away. Rummaging So I did some more […]
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Another Year Older
My Third Birthday on Spacegrazer Today starts the last year of my thirties! This is also the third birthday that I am celebrating on Spacegrazer. It feels pretty special. It might sound cliche, but the best present is waking up with my loved ones on our boat once again. I don’t really have a wish […]
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Family Visit
Oma and Opa Arrive My parents flew in from The Netherlands to sail with us for a bit. I thought this was very brave of them since they are not that into boats, or used to being on one… The kids happily squeezed into one cabin so that ‘oma en opa’ (that’s Dutch for grandma […]
Beau is Seven
Pancakes Pancakes is a tradition with us on birthdays. Today was presents then pancakes. Beau was literally jumping up and down with excitement. We love to indulge it. The boat is covered with birthday decorations and balloons. Another tradition onboard, regardless of age. Beau 7 In the last year Beau has learnt so much. His […]
Day before Beau turns seven
Beau’s excited Today is officially known as the day before Beau turns seven. He is super-duper excited about it. Has he told us? About a million times. Opa en Oma We are also preparing for Opa and Oma to come. Boat things needed to be cleaned up, moved around. I even unwrapped the new pressure […]
Pickup in Pula
Getting Here We had a lovely sail down to our pick up, Pula today. There was just a gentle breeze from astern and we had the sails up straight away. Our boat is not built for speed and we were overtaken by, well, everyone sailing the same course. Many of the boats had kevlar sails […]
Mouths of babes
Conversation with Zoe today She told me, “I’ll never forget you.” “Forget me?”, I asked concerned. “Yes, if you go away on a long holiday”, she replied. “Oh”, I said somewhat relieved. “Or once you’re dead.” Terrific! Out of the mouths of babes… Reaching Rovinj So, after filling up with diesel at the dockside we […]
Umag
The weather was still settled and we choose to hang around Umag for another day or two. I rowed into the marina and picked up the connector for the outboard fuel line. It’s all working again. In the evening we when onshore and took a car/train thing along the coast about 5km. The whole shoreline […]
Crossing over to Croatia
Piran looked a pretty place. We stuck our nose into the harbour and it looked pretty busy. After several days of slowing down, busy wasn’t really high on the agenda. So we changed plans and decided that crossing over to Croatia was the thing to do. Everyone’s told us that the Croatians are sticklers for […]
The Kids this Month – May 2018
Things the kids were into in May 2018 Swimming – swim season has started again! LEGO – they go on and off Lego’s. Definitely ON at the moment. Pokemon – it’s an obsession… Funny stuff they said this month Beau During a sail the wind unexpectedly picked up and caused the boat to heel over […]
Slowing Down in Slovenia
Since we’ve been in Slovenia we’ve been at anchor for three nights and have done a lot of nothing much. Sometimes it feels difficult to slow down. Right now though, we aren’t having too much of a guilt-complex about it. I did manage to cut the boys hair, and we did go to the shore […]
Boat Stuff
For people interested in our sailboat and the things we do to keep her floating, I have added ‘boat stuff’, which may or may not float yours. People ask us constantly what type of boat Spacegrazer is. She is an Irwin 52, designed by Ted Irwin and built in 1988, in Florida, USA. These boats […]
Venice “La Serenissima”
We left Venice this morning after a wonderful stay. The thing that really surprised me is how many calm, green places Venice has. Yes, the city itself is crazy busy – packed with tourists, pushing their way through the narrow alleys and canals. But just a few hundred meters from Saint Mark’s, there are quiet […]
Venice (baby!)
Well I can’t say anything about Venice that hasn’t already been written. Our excitement was overflowing as we entered. As expected, it was teeming with all sorts of boats, from cruise ships to oar-powered craft. We stayed at Certosa Marina. Only our third marina in over 2 years. It was hectic coming in as we […]
Up the East Coast of Italy
The pilot books warned of a sparse cruising-ground when sailing the east coast of Italy, and it wasn’t wrong. It could’ve been that we were already of the mindset to cover some miles so that we could enjoy Venice and Croatia without the feeling of being rushed. To Otranto Our first leg up from Siracusa […]
What we do on a passage
We just did our first overnight sail of the season. We left Siracusa, Sicily, last Thursday and arrived at Otranto on the Italian mainland on Saturday morning. So we were underway for 2 days and nights non-stop. Time passes by very strangely underway. There are moments of relaxed bliss when time flies by. There are […]
On the move again
So we left MdR on Sunday 6 May after spending our second winter there. Shaking off six plus months in a marina is a surreal experience. Suddenly after ages of being in one place the boat is moving. The boat the was once the shape of a house, is once again a house in the […]