These are the voyages of "Dazzle" (port of registry Toronto, Ontario Canada), a C&C 121 sloop with Dora and Zoltan on board for most of the time and family and friends joining occasionally (Dazzle inherited her name from our family golden retriever who passed on a few years before and we still miss). In 2008 we sailed from Toronto, along the St Lawrence River and its Gulf to Nova Scotia then south along the US East Coast to Florida and the Bahamas. This website captures some of our experiences. After wintering in the Bahamas Exhumas and taking an outfitting break in Florida, we spent the summer of 2009 in New England.  In September 2009 we transported Dazzle to Genova, Italy to spend some time cruising the Mediterranean. We spent the winter at Alghero, Sardinia.  In 2010 we sailed around Costa Smeralda of Sardinia, stopped by the islands of Palmarola, Ponza, Ventotene, Ischia, Capri; then down to the Aeloian islands and around the boot of Italy to Croatia. We spent the summers of 2010, 11 and 12 in beautiful Dalmatia with winters in Monfalcone (2010, Nautec marina, bad experience) and Milna, Brac (2011, in the water, very nice). Finally, near the end of summer 2012 we left Croatia for Greece. Since 2013 we're back in the Adriatic and have painted ourself in a corner there. We like Dalmatia the most for enjoying the sea, Italy for food, service and storage.

Prior to this cruise, we sailed up the Great Lakes from Toronto to Thunder Bay, Lake Superior and back to Toronto twice, first during the summer of '06 and then '07, but we don't have a web-log of those trips, only a lot of photos and a traditional log. We could recreate the blog, but it would take some time, and time is something that cruisers don't have nearly as much as non-cruisers imagine. We both took most of the sailing and navigation related courses at the Humber College Sailing Centre in Toronto, and would wholeheartedly recommend those to anyone getting into sailing and cruising. The courses are detailed, hands-on and classroom, conducted on large keel-boats, covering all subject matter necessary for extended coastal cruising.

We acquired the boat new (hull #40) in January 2005, just in time (rush - not on our part, but due to our agreement) for display at the Toronto Boat Show. This boat was an "upgrade" from our 17' prospector canoe with which we explored the back-country of Northern Ontario for more than a decade). Most events of the following six months involving the commissioning and minimally (thank god for the minimum decision) equipping the boat for our first summer of boat ownership are now in the category of "i would not do that that way again". In fact, I'd try to convince the factory to have it delivered to some rented barn in Ontario and do the rest myself, and save an awful lot of money, boat damage, and nerves in the process (no dealer necessary). The description of the experience and reasons for this decision would take quite a number of pages (that I haven't written yet) and many photographs (which I have). Some tidbits are sprinkled around in our blog, and I may do a systematic review one day and post it in a separate area. With a bit of distance, all these can be described in a very funny way, exposing the non-standard by which boats are being built, sold and delivered. I wouldn't believe anyone telling me otherwise, and as long as the word "pleasure" is in the description of the product, it won't change in the future either. "Pleasure" is what the guy standing opposite the boat owner feels when he's engaged by an owner.

However, despite all of the above, we love the boat and still can't think of a different boat that would better suit our taste for sailing and cruising. We added most of its additional equipment ourselves and repaired the faulty installations of most items installed during the first six months.

List of what we had installed the first six months:

List of what I installed/did since, roughly in order:

I planned to embellish and provide some more insight to our experience with the items above some day...

Last and the most - this website was put together by our son Tamas using the Python language and its Django web development framework, and he keeps improving it whenever he can and encouraging us to do and publish more. Our son Zalan is our home liaison, manager and moral support.

Drop us a comment through the contact us tab.

-- Z+D --