We started early in the morning to make some progress (and to avoid the charge for the buoy). Got becalmed at a perfect spot and anchored. It would be a shame to rush by these scenic places anyway.
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2011
20
Jun
2011
19
Jun
A garden in the sea
The islands along Dugi Otok form a fantastic sea garden. We enjoyed a lovely sailing day, although we were becalmed a couple of times between the islands.
Two dolphins accompanied us for a while.
Tied up at a buoy at Otok Rava for the night.
2011
18
Jun
Cruiser’s routine
Winds from SE (where we want to go) keep us in the protected bay of Ist and give us the time to have a go at cruiser’s routine tasks of boat maintenance (C working on electronics, I sewing a spray dodger, Leeloo sunbathing), just right to get into the mood 
2011
16
Jun
Lovely idyllic Ist
We accomplished incredible 12nm in 7 hours today… We are staying in Ist tonight, a butterfly-shaped island without cars and totally laid back. For sunset we walked up the hill to the church, what started at a leisurly pace turned into a race against time, but we made it.
2011
15
Jun
Pretty little Ilovic
After sailing at less than 2kn down the coast of losinj, we`ve decided to
make a stop at Ilovic and to explore the little island with its picturesque village in the afternoon. sunny skies, green water and AC/DC from a tourist boat 
2011
13
Jun
Legal again
after being forced to leave CRO in order to get our diving compressor while in Pula, we got back our legal status today. not an easy task in Mali Losinj. No space for docking, weird office hours, customs and harbour master at opposite ends of town…
2011
11
Jun
We are sailing!
We managed to sail off at last. We left Pula around noon and are now approaching our first anchorage on the island of Unije after a perfect sailing day!
2011
10
Jun
day off
Leaving behind the job and the whole ratrace sounded so nice, but we’ve been working 12 to 15 hours daily on the boat since we arrived here and a day off would be really nice now. Otherwise we’ll manage to get a burn out syndrom without having a job
After struggling with Croatian bureau-crazy we’ve finally got all equipment on the boat and hopefully we’ll be able to leave the marina tonight!
2011
05
Jun
Getting ready to set sail
We’re still in Pula, working on several projects on the boat simultaneously, but the big jobs like painting the deck and installing the watermaker are done. The chaos is slowly turning into organisation and it looks like we’ll be off soon!
2011
27
May
Moved in
Finally we’ve moved in our new home Pitufa. We have emptied our flat in Austria (hell of a task), but dozens of jobs remain on the boat. anyway, now we’ve got time to do them
2011
01
May
Building site
Only 3 weeks to go until we move to our new swimming home, but Pitufa still resembles a building site. We’ve worked our way with angle grinders half across the deck (the layers of paint, filler and primer seem to be an extra resistant material, probably developed by NASA in order to annoy us…), but the painting will have to wait until later… Christian has installed the water maker (the item on board that’s supposed to give us the freedom to stay in remote places) successfully, but the maststeps, deckshower, etc. are still piled up in a heap on the livingroom floor in Graz
Most organisational stuff is finished, but there remains enough to do for the “final phase” of our landlubber lives!
2011
05
Apr
Shopping Tour
The last couple of weeks we’ve been busy ordering all sorts of boat equipment: water maker, sails, life raft, mast steps and thousands of little but important items. There is so much to think of…
While loading our boat with tons of needful things, we are throwing off ballast like memberships, insurances, standing orders, furniture, etc. It’s such a relief! Less than two months to go
2011
31
Jan
Gale Probability KMZ File
Pilot charts are certainly of great help for planning ocean routes and fortunately, the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency makes their Atlas of Pilot Charts available for free (get it here. you may find their server somewhat slow and rather try it here).
I’ve recently generated kml/kmz files that show the prevailing ocean winds (get more info here). Viewing them with Google Maps (as in our map at Pitufa.at) or Google Earth is really convenient. So I decided to put more information from pilot charts in kml/kmz files. For a start the gale probabilities are done. Read more »
2010
05
Dec
Prevailing Ocean Winds
Recently, I have discovered world-wide ocean wind data collected over ten years from the ‘SeaWinds’ scatterometer onboard the ‘QuikSCAT’ satellite on the Internet at Oregon State University: COGOW. The site offers an interactive atlas to view prevailing wind maps and wind roses. For blue-water cruisers, the site is definitely a great source to aid route planning. Read more »
2010
13
Nov
Total Solar Eclipse of November 13, 2012
According to NASA there will be a total solar eclipse in the South Pacific when we plan to cruise there from French Polynesia to Chile. Read more »