Split, Coatia

In October for Linda’s birthday we took off to Split in Croatia for 5 days. What a beautiful, friendly country with gorgeous coastline – I promised myself I’d one day sail here.

We had a very cool apartment in the centre of town, which happened to be inside an ancient palace of a Roman Emperor. We hired a car and drove 200km’s to the Kora National park, which has now been designated a world heritage site.

On Linda’s birthday in predictable fashion, we got drunk on the beach which was a real treat having just had a freezing October in the UK!

A dry month for Double Bruyn and her Captain...

It seemed like a good idea at the time... To free up some time and much needed funds for boat work, Smarty and i decided to have a month on the wagon. Looking back, it seem's like something we'd come up with after a few beers! But to keep us on track we put a £100 wager on it, and from November 1st we began our alcohol-free ramadahm diet.

Basically i got a window to haul the boat out in Brighton and jumped at it. With so much to do it made sense to knock it off in one go, even if i picked a terrible and cold month to do it. The major jobs were to fix the steering (for about the 10th time), overhaul the engine, tidy up the kitchen and interior and re-wire the electrics. I planned to work in the evening's after work and make the most of the weekends.

We had a great time taking the engine out - ended up using a few blocks, the boom and the deck winches was quite a sight. Unfortunately my old faithful has turned out to be a can of worms and i expect that i won't have the engine sorted by the time we go back in the water (i'm very tempted to use it as an anchor...) I've had loads of help - Jas put a depth sounder in (after 6000 miles of not having one!), Linda did a fantastic job painting the interior and Smarty's helped out everywhere from the engine to the kitchen. Thanks!!!!

Although i know it so well i still get shocked at how easily a boat swallows your penny's. It may be the credit crunch now but if the rest of England was making money like the shops here in the dock yard our economy would be booming. Its easy to see why so many boats and projects get abandoned in the boat yard... I like the dictionary definition:

sailing [sa-ling] obsession. The fine are of getting really wet, really cold, going nowhere really fast, while spending really large amounts of money.

Truthfully its pretty tough living on board now. The boat is cramped and untidy, can't really cook well and its soooo cold at the moment! Although this month i've stayed away alot, and definately can't complain as this work will make next year so much fun ;-)

PS. Despite his best intentions Jon's wheel's fell off on Nov 18th.... So everybody was right and i might have to try again next year ;-)