Twenty years on the water. Two flags worth of credentials. One standard, regardless of who's aboard or what the work is.
The short version: most of my life I’ve been on the water in San Francisco Bay. It was there I earned — sailing instructor and charter captain — across some of the most demanding teaching water in the United States. Cold ocean swells, fast-building afternoon westerlies, fog you can't see your bow through, and a tide that runs four knots through the Golden Gate. Sailors who learn there learn properly.
The three years that came after were Florida — mostly powerboat and marina management work, a different rhythm and a much gentler sea. Useful for the time I spent on the helm of motor yachts, less so as a teaching environment. By the end of that chapter I knew I wanted out of warm water and back into wind that meant something.
The Adriatic kept showing up in conversations. I came to Croatia for the first time years ago for a charter, established friendships and contacts in between, and eventually moved here. My family now resides in Pula. This is home, not a posting.
The northern Adriatic is, in many ways, San Francisco Bay's cousin — strong, fast-changing wind, a coastline that punishes inattention, and a real working sea rather than a postcard. The bora and the summer westerlies aren't the same weather, but they ask the same questions of a captain. A lifetime of answering those questions, in two of the toughest small seas I've sailed, is what I bring aboard now.
A licensed captain isn't a marketing claim — it's a regulator's record. Every credential below is held current and on file.
The waters between Pula and the Kvarner gulf are unique in the Mediterranean. Strong, fast-changing winds — the bora out of the northeast, the maestral from the west — and a coastline of nearly seven hundred islands, most of which are not on the standard charter circuit.
Knowing where to anchor when the bora rises is a different skill than reading a brochure. So is knowing which restaurant on Cres still does the seafood the proper way, which marina manager will accept a late arrival without grumbling, and which cove on Lošinj has the right depth for an evening swim. I've spent the last several seasons collecting that map.
For an owner, that map is what makes a delivery passage land cleanly. For a charter client on a bareboat, it's the difference between an Adriatic week that's one of kind and one that runs through the same ten anchorages everyone else hits. For a charter operator, it's a captain who already knows the coast their boat is sitting on. Different clients, same map.
Croatiaskipper.com is one captain. There's no fleet, no booking centre, no roster of sub-contracted skippers I've never met. When you hire me — for a charter week, a delivery, a sea trial, a fleet repositioning — you're booking the same person who replied to your first message.
That keeps two things consistent. First, the standard — I can vouch for every job because I'm running it. Second, the conversation — you're not negotiating with a sales agent who'll hand you off later. The questions you ask before booking are answered by the captain who'll do the work.
It also keeps the operation honest. There's no quota of boats to fill, so the call to delay a passage, reroute around weather, or push a job to next week is made on the merits — every time.
Most clients send a short note before booking. Glad to answer anything, no obligation either way.