Latern repair en route ...

... without fear of heights on our moving and rolling ship - master climber is our commander Micke.

Meanwhile at main deck: Staffan at the wheel operating Pixel for the first time with both main sail  and genaker in the right position.

8 knots..

... with mainsail and genaker. Wind from North and wind of 7.5 Ms. Last night we made a brief refueling and ice cream stop in Santa Maria de Lueca, Italy.

We are now sailing as fast as possible to our safe harbour in Palermo, Sicily. Around midnight or early morning hour we will pass thru the Messina strait. Depending on the weather we will stay one or two days in Palermo to wait out the expected bad weather.

Friday afternoon ...

... and slight adjustment of our routing. We plan to follow the Italian coast line all the way down to the heel of Italy and hopefully we will reach Messina on Saturday evening. Great weather today, sunny,  +23 C and and a wind of 5.5 ms. It was  bit tricky for me to keep Pixel on the right course on my first try this afternoon.

Earlier today it was calm enough to bring out  a deck of cards on deck (Annika and Eva) while Tore was keeping watch for obstacles in front of us. Rice cooking under full sails is a challenge.

Early morning...

...after 25 hours at sea after leaving the island of Vis. We work in three hour shifts on a rolling schedule: 3 hours active duty, 3 hours on stand by followed by 3 hours of rest. If everything is OK we can rest a bit during stand by.

In order to stay fit and happy we have our sun aerobics teacher Annika.

Vis stopover...

...before the first leg to Italy. We arrived at sunset and had a great dinner at local restaurant. Today another beautiful morning but we are expecting rough weather ahead and will therefore proceed directly to Palermo, bypassing Messina. The weather God will decide the exact route together with captain Micke.

Dinner at Vis. Left to right: Micke, Annika, 

Staffan, Ebba, Tore, Anna, Eva, Stefan.

At sea - finally

After a final check and cleaning of Pixel we are now on our way to the small island of Vis. It will be our last stop in Croatia before we start on the first leg towards Italy. At Vis we will complete custom clearance.

Annika and Eva working hard cleaning prior to departure,  Micke our captain at the helm and Stefan up front checking the front deck. We are altogether seven crew members, three ladies and four gentlemen.

Postponed departure...

...due to additional paperwork and missing spare parts and security equipment. At least we don't expect to wait 60 days like Niklas from Sweden. He bought a Nauticat 34 at a fair price here in Croatia two month ago from a German gentleman.

Finally, today he could leave the marina after major repair work had been carried out at Croatian speed. I am showing his boat below - on shore and off shore.

Niklas lived onboard his boat on shore the whole waiting period together with his 12 year old dog Terry who was wondering about the lack of water...