Apps We Use
Weather
Predictwind provides primary gust, wave, atmosphere forecasts, observation stations and routing
My Lightning Tracker & Alerts sends us a notification if Lightning is detected within x km of our current location
We tend to install the local weather forecaster app in addition to Predict Wind. Eg yr.com in Norway, met office in uk etc as they are often better with land forecasts
Cruising Apps
NoForeignLand. Great for keeping up to date with cruising friends, asking geofenced questions (eg how is an anchorage?), tracking your boat (our track is updated automatically)
Navily for anchorage and marina reviews and booking
Tremate for tracking spares inventory around the boat, keeping a log of maintenance work and a schedule of future maintenance work
Scotland: The Antares charts are almost mandatory if spending any time in this area
Norway: The Barentswatch.no website gives accurate wave forecast when travelling along the coast
Marine Traffic – AIS snooping
Other sites
Noonsite Essential information about each country we visit including the check in/out process. Also lots of other cruising news
AAC (Morgans Cloud) The best source of practical cruising information we have found. Covers safety, energy, sailing, docking, navigation etc. Great community of experts. The editor is a bit of a Boreal fan boy and it’s behind a paywall, but well worth it IMHO
Kimberley Coast Cruising Club The NW corner of Australia is easily missed. Its not well known, but it is one of the most remote and unique cruising grounds. The KCCC provide the information if you get the opportunity to visit.
Also these guys visited the Kimberley and were the inspiration for our trip with our 30 ft boat.
Blogs / YT
We follow some owner blogs. Some examples:
Hai You one of the early Garcia GX45 blogs we found. They spent time in Patagonia, made changes to reefing setup and installed a Dickinson heater
Iraila GX45 currently in Brazil which makes for interesting reading
Fiandadriansailing Yep thats our diary and we both read it from time to time and pinch ourselves when we remember what a mad adventure we are having. Maybe it will inspire you to record your own adventures.
Schengen Shuffle: One option to avoid having to leave Schengen every 90 days to travel on a Crew List. Sailing Helios have some good content describing their experiences.
Orcas
orcas.pt This map is the most up to date information on orca interactions we have been able to find. The information on this site seems more oriented towards saving your boat than not disturbing the orcas. GTOA has conflicting advice and didn’t seem to be updating their location info.
CA reports A good place to read reports of interactions from eye witnesses and come to your own conclusions.
Other
Eartec Headsets we use. They work well in windy conditions and only cover one ear. There are others but we can recommend these.
Vigor’s Black Box we talk about our luck bucket. Here is another explanation of the same concept.
