Kids’ Education and Playtime on the Waves
Welcome to our new blog post where we share insights into our children’s life and education aboard our sailing home. We have compiled a short video to give you a better sense of this extraordinary way of life that is filled with adventures, new experiences, and challenges. Our days typically start with a breakfast and…
Six months in Bora Bora (diary excerpts)
French Polynesian islands French Polynesia is located in the South Pacific Ocean and is made up of one hundred and thirty islands. These islands are spread out roughly around the size of Europe. French Polynesia is made up five main archipelagos: the Marquesas, the Tuamotu, the Gambier, the Austral and the Society Islands. Of these,…
Pearl Islands
The Archipelago around Panama – part 2. October, 2021 Not far from Panama City on the Pacific side lie the Pearl Islands. We visited these islands several times. They are very different from the islands on the other side of the canal. The first time around, we set out from the capital before dawn to…
San Blas Islands, Guna Yala
We very much enjoyed the bit of time we spent on these islands. It was totally worth sailing over here to get a glimpse of this wonderful archipelago.
Passage Through the Panama Canal
October 19, 2021 Preparation We had planned to leave the marina and start our Panama Canal transit on Tuesday, early afternoon. We had just come back from a trip to San Blas for two days to meet the native Kuna people and to get a glimpse of this wonderful archipelago. Domi swam under the boat…
Diary – Sailing from Miami to Panama
June 10, 2021 Should have left earlier … initially we planned to stay in Miami for only a week so that we could avoid hurricanes on our way to Panama. We ended up staying for three weeks. We had been thinking about getting vaccinated against Covid-19 for a while when we made up our mind…
Diary excerpts from Saint Martin to the Bahamas and on to Miami – Part 2.
May 12, Nassau To get to Nassau you have two options: either take a big detour going around the islands on the outer side, or cross a huge, very shallow bank. When crossing the bank, you have to be aware of the timing of the high and low tides. It’s ideal to start the crossing…
Diary excerpts – from Saint Martin to the Bahamas and on to Miami Part 1.
April 17 greeted us with a gorgeous, clear morning. We got up early to avoid standing in line at the pharmacy where we were going to have our antigen tests done later on. Though it’s not exactly our strong suit, we managed to get ready within a reasonable amount of time. At the pharmacy we…
Ile Tintamarre
This small island is 3 km northwest from St. Martin. It means relaxation for us, a break from working days when we were able to sail from Marigot one weekend. Tintamarre is a wild island today, free of any construction and commercial facilities. In the early 1900s about 150 people lived on this island. Tintamarre…
Rum and „pogácsa”
„All roads lead to… rum” could be the motto of Martinique. Domi wanted to go to a rum distillery while we were on Martinique. There are a lot of workshops, finally we decided to visit the La Favourite Distillery. This is an artisan family factory and they use steam engines. The whole place was very captivating. At first, we…
On the French Caribbean Islands – Martinique
As far back as I can remember, I have always been amazed by nature, the various plants and animals, geographical formations … Here, whichever way I go, I am in awe. My first discovery is „mother-in-law’s tongue” or Sansevieria, growing wild under the trees on the beach. What’s more, they are in bloom. The white,…
Crossing an Ocean – Chapter III., Cape Verde – Martinique
Diary Entries: December 6, Saint Nicolas Day (Day 8)I woke up around 7 to the sound of the girls showing me what Mikulas brought them overnight! We were all overjoyed to have received some sweet surprises, especially as we had by now run out of all the chocolates. A nice, lengthy breakfast began with antler…
Crossing an Ocean – Chapter II. Cape Verde – Marinique
2nd part: Cabo Verde – Martinique (Fr) November 29, 2020 First Sunday of Advent 10.30 As we sail out of the bay, the family with two blond kids from the neighbouring Danish ship is waving farewell to us, alongside our relatives and friends from home on Viber. We also said goodbye to the doggie guarding…
Crossing an Ocean – Chapter I. Las Palmas – Cabo Verde
Diary Entries: November 16, 2020 (Day 1) Setting out. No wind, motor’s on. First night: around 1AM I took the helm from Domi. Still not much wind, the sky cleared out, myriads of stars shining bright above us, the whitecaps in the water are dazzling with plankton. Around 2 we hoisted the sails again, barely…
The Atlantic crossing
We set out to cross the Atlantic. The first destination is Cape Verde. We anchored in the bay in front of the harbor last night. We still needed to work for a long time in the evening to get the boat ready to cross. We left this morning. We wanted to go early, but we…
The new genoa and staysail have arrived from Barcelona
12nd of November, 2020 Now we no longer have a self tacking jib, but a large genoa, and a smaller self tacking stay sail has been sewn from the old jib, which is small in area and can be used well in high winds. The remaining material will be used for possible repairs, but there…
We’ve launched our Instagram page! Here, you can see regular pictures and videos about our trip. We hope you like it! 🙂 https://www.instagram.com/sailingteatime/
La Graciosa
One of our favorite islands is La Graciosa; a volcanic island in the Spanish Canary Islands. Here we reached shore for the first time after sailing out of the Gulf of Gibraltar. Maybe that is why this island captivated us like it did. The view is also stunning, and the whole island suggests very good…
We have completed the first stage of our journey
We have reached the end of the first leg of our journey. The Canary Islands were the goal and here we are. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic we had to start much later and had to shorten our journey, but we still managed to achieve our goal! It reminds me we didn’t even celebrate! It…
Entry Permit
2nd of October, 2020 Yesterday we received the entry permit to the island of Martinique !!! Long live!!! We planned to have Martinique as our first stop after crossing the Atlantic. According to our latest information, European citizens flying the EU flag can enter the Caribbean islands that belong to the European Community. But yesterday…
Las Palmas, port
24 September 2020 We arrived at midnight on Monday. Beforehand in the afternoon, Domi called the port and we were told to dock the boat behind the reception building, which is in turn behind a large lifeboat, just to the left of the entrance. We docked, then pulled the boat backwards, just in case someone…
Gibraltar – Canary Islands
Most of the work has been completed on the ship, only a few repairs left to do. This means we can start, all that is left is to lift the ship to have the steering gear checked by the factory for the previous fault. We left La Linea early on Tuesday morning, September 8th. At…
Goodbye Mediterranean Sea
It’s Autumn here. The weather is windier, fogger cooler, especially in the morning and evening, however there is summer at noon.Unfortunately, we are still near Gibraltar in Spanish waters. Time will pass and the weather will just become wilder. We hope we can leave on Tuesday, there are encoring signs. The ship had to be…
Palermo
09.07.2020 04:40 We have left for Palermo, the sun is rising, no wind at all and the sea is completely still. 07:34 Dolphins at the tip of the boat! Sometimes they look like a group of synchronised swimmers. You can clearly see them below the calm water too. What an experience to watch them! They…
Aeolian Islands
07/04/2020 In the morning we continued our sail journey to the Aeolian Islands. We arrived in the city of Lipari in the afternoon. We looked around the bay in front of the city, the anchorage didn’t seem safe in the manic boat traffic which constantly made large waves. Every 20 minutes, a hydrofoil, an hourly…
Otranto – Straits of Messina
1st July – 4th July 2020 We left Otranto in the morning and arrived to Santa Maria de Leuca in the afternoon. We stopped to fill the fuel tanks and visited our Sukosan neighbour, Martin’s boat in the harbour. It was really hot and because we were all quite tired, decided to stop for a…
We have started!
27.06.2020 We decided not to wait any longer and start the big adventure. We had a last swim in Sukošan Bay and then we headed to Vis. We have left. Not all the works are finished on the boat, but we felt that we are running out of time and we also needed this change…
Time to depart
We are just about to start the big adventure. Our plan is to be at Gibraltar within 6-8 weeks. We made a big shopping which will hopefully last for the next month or so and managed to find safe storage space for everything. As we need more space for our supplies we discover more and…
Molat
A perfectly peaceful little island. The main square of the village is the biggest surprise as we walk up on the streets from the harbour. First, there is a war monument with the yellow bell tower in the background. Another couple of steps and there is the main square, on the right hand side a…
Pag
This is a lovely bay close to Pag with a wonderful, sandy beach. Usually there isn’t a lot of boat traffic in the area, possibly because of the gusty and unpleasant bora wind blowing down from the mountains. Since the weather forecast was good, we decided to visit the place and spend a night here.…
The first solar panels are up and running
In a bit of a drizzle but finally the technicians managed to install the first solar panels in place. First the two middle one which was easier to do. We are overjoyed with them! The other two on the sides will need a bit of further planning and playing with numbers etc to have the…
Diary, Ravni Žakan
21, April The lock down is lifted, we can travel in our local area. Maybe we will sail somewhere nearby. Today is a bit cold and overcast. Today we did some indoor excercise with the kids, they did really well. We have tried the frozen yeast, it worked and the bread turned out to be…
At anchor next to the marina
At the beginning of April we left the marina. Our lease has expired and we did not renew, since our plan was to start the journey in the Mediterranean sea towards Gibraltar. First we wanted to go to Italy, then as the situation has changed due to the pandemic we thought that maybe Malta could…
Solar panels
Today the stainless steel specialists has started to install the frame for the solar panels and the dinghy. On one hand it hurts a bit to see the beautiful sailing boat transforming into a more practical cruiser boat, but on the other hand that is exactly what we want. It’s almost magic what the specialists…
School day
This morning we have started to fill Kati’s exercise book in preparation for the next school year. Boróka has practised her handwriting and later she has designed a bird feeder, she also did some calculations to complete her drawings. Inspired by this, Kati has designed a car and draw it from every possible angle, cut…
50 days to go
50 days left to leave our beloved marina and set sail to start our big adventure. And many (too many…?) things to do before that. By now we have an idea about what can be done before that and what are the tasks we need to put on hold for a while. To prepare the…
Marina
A walk in the Marina fills me with immense peace, anywhere in the World.