Dream’s first charter of the summer went very well and we were lucky enough to have a day off to enjoy Cavtat, a little town right at the southern end of Croatia, where we did a little wakeboarding and enjoyed the beautiful weather. In another few days we’ll be heading back towards the western Med.

Cavtat is only a few miles from Dubrovnik which has an amazing old fortified port. We were there at the same time as six cruise ships so there were thousands of tourists making it a little crowded to say the least.

In the busy few days leading up to the start of the summer season, I was lucky enough to have the chance to take a boat trip around the canals of Venice.

As Vix and I found out last year it really is an amazing city.

There is a lot of restoration work being done at the moment, and many of the ‘Palazzo’ need considerable TLC to get them back to the way were in Venice’s glory days, but with a new flood prevention barrier being built at the entrance to the lagoon hopefully Venice’s future is safe despite worries over global warming.

I have just signed up with Joost, the online TV service from the guys who came up with skype. So if anyone has a fast internet connection and wants an invite email me or add a comment to this post.

We pulled into Venice yesterday after four days sailing from Barcelona.

Despite nasty weather for the last day the trip went well, and it is a great feeling to have completed my first stint as Captain without any problems.

As we were lucky enough to have a day or two off in Barcelona, I took advantage of a local company called Barcelona Mountain Bike which take guided mountain bike tours of the hills and mountains surrounding the city.

Jamil, who also works on Dream, came along and we had a great three hour ride. BCN Mountain bikes rent bikes if you do not have your own and I would really recommend giving them a call if you are in Barcelona with a few hours to spare.

The last few weeks have included a lot of travelling. Firstly from St Maarten up to Bermuda, which took about three days. Then from Bermuda we crossed the Atlantic to Gibraltar, stopped to refuel and made our way up to Barcelona where we’ll be for a week or so. This was the first crossing I’ve done as Captain so it’s good to have made it over smoothly.

Vix has now left Dream and is in the south of France where we are planning to base ourselves for the next year or two.

Last week was spent anchored off St Barths for the St Barths Bucket sailing race. We were there with guests from a sailing yacht that was competing so some of the crew got to race with them and the whole week was quite relaxed.

This week we are back in St Maarten catching up on a few maintenance jobs before we begin to head for Europe.

I’ve been enjoying the chance to ride some of the hills here on St Maarten on my mountain bike, though puncture proof tires are an essential as the trails on the island seems to consist solely of thorn bushes and cactus.

As you may have noticed there is a new link at the top of the column to the right of this page. I am in the process of making up another little site where I will occasionally put some technical bits and pieces mainly to do with Apple, Wordpress and anything else that I find useful and think might be of interest.

From Ft Lauderdale we headed across to the Bahamas, and then down through the Turks and Caicos Islands to the British Virgin Islands.

The BVI’s are a beautiful chain of islands that have some great cruising and very pretty anchorages. We spent a day or two tied up at the Bitter End Yacht Club before heading on to St Barths and St Maarten, where we are at present.

Next week we’ll be heading to St Barths again with guests to watch the St Barths Bucket sailing race.

After spending two weeks in Whistler, Vix and I headed down to Squamish to check on our house there.

Whilst in Canada another house in a property magazine caught our eye, and after a tour with a local estate agent we made an offer. Anyway to cut a long story short now, just over three weeks later, we own two houses in Squamish.

Once back from Canada we had a very busy few weeks in Ft Lauderdale finishing off the shipyard period on Dream and I also completed two computer courses (COMPTIA A+ and Network+). Hopefully later in the year I’ll get the chance to get my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) as well.