As usual we had a mad dash on our last day to do all the shopping, buy missing gear and do some last minute upgrades and tinkerings. One of my special projects included the construction to raise our navigational light to the mast top, quite successful but we only made it to bed well after midnight to catch some precious sleep before hitting the road.

In our experience, there is never enough condensed milk on a sailing expedition!

Special rig to hoist the navigational light

First day got us to Zadar in time to visit the harbour master. Our goal was to obtain a boat license, including a fancy sticker for boats longer than 3 metres. However, we missed the right document (license for sport boats, of which not even the Austrian offshore yachting club had told us that we would need it, that ignorant bunch of snobby yacht sailors), and the guy told us:"Bah, this is nothing, nothing!" when we presented to him the CE and ISO norm of the catamaran. So, no sticker, no money spent, and we are apparently doing this under our own risk, but, hey, I can't see how a sticker would reduce our risk either!

After that episode we proceeded to our trusted parking spot and buildup shore and started assembling the catamaran.

Our flags are flying while I mount some lines on the frame. The flags indicate a southerly wind, hinting of the tacking that is yet to come

Then we started our night time cruise but with little wind. Having cast off just after seven in the evening those eleven miles required many tacks and we arrived after some alternating power naps at 0515 at some island! This action was hampered by the fail of the navigation system because the backup battery did not do its job, a fact that occupied my mind for a substantial time of the night.

By more luck than skill we found a good landing spot without any nasty rocks and then went in search of a campsite under the light of our torches.

Building up the tent in the dark was by now a standard operation procedure, having it trained excessively in the past year. We managed to get a hot milk into our stomachs just before bed. Rain started as soon as we got into the sleeping bags and lasted all morning.