Saturday morning we located our boat and checked into our little cabin ready for our 1pm departure. Our first stop was an hour or so south of Split, just off the mainland, for a quick swim.
The first night was spent moored up in the town of Makarska. What we thought was a sleepy little town turned into a very happening party spot with some awesome bars. Bit of a crazy night, a sign of things to come perhaps...?
Sunday, our first full day on the boat, was arguably the best. After leaving Makarska mid morning, we stopped off at a deserted bay on the island of Brac. We had about 5 hours there, including a great lunch, and plenty of time in the water.
Late afternoon we cruised further along the coast of Brac and pulled up in the town of Bol. This is our boat, Tarin:
Bol has an amazing beach that I didn't manage to do justice with my camera.
Monday. The 3rd. Possibly my best birthday ever. Again the day was spent at a random spot, this time off the island of Hvar, before pulling into the main town (also called Hvar...confused?) for a great birthday dinner and an awesome party night. These boys have nothing on Tarin.
The Tuesday morning sun coming up.
Tuesday was (perhaps not surprisingly) pretty low key. We cruised over to the island of Korcula, for more swimming and sunbathing, and then had a quiet dinner and a pretty early night moored just outside Korcula old town.
Another contender for "day of the week" was Wednesday. We spent the morning swimming and chilling at a random spot just off the island of Mljet, before jumping in the dinghy and being dropped off at the small town of Polace.
The main attraction on Mljet is its national park, basically two large "lakes" (actually connected to the sea) with a monestry in the middle. We hired some bikes and got our only exercise of the week peddling maybe 12kms from Polace over the hill to the national park and around the lakes to a great spot next to the Monestry.
We jumped back on the boat about 5pm which pulled out of Polace to a secluded spot with a fantastic sunset. Tarin had a great spot on the roof with lots of thick comfy mats, perfect for sunbathing during the day and drinking beers at night.
Thursday, more of the same. Spent the day swimming off the boat at a quiet spot, before pulling into the town of Sipan for another great sunset.
Our final full day on board was pretty similar to Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Oh and probably Thursday too. Similar in that it was almost perfect. We swam during the day and pulled into our final port, Dubrovnik at night.
After some serious illness overnight, Saturday morning was spent at the Dubrovnik Hospital getting drips and anti-nausea medication. Probably not the best day on tour. We snoozed all afternoon and finally got out to see a little bit of Dubrovnik on Saturday evening.
Things were pretty much back to normal on Sunday, so we walked around the amazingly intact city walls of Dubrovnik. The old town is in extremely good nick, especially given the wars in the early 90s, and ranks right up there in our top places we have visited so far. Of course the perfect weather and 30 plus degC heat might have helped.
Sunday afternoon we decided we hadn't had a swim in ages (like 48 hours) so walked around the corner to a nice little beach to get our last little bit of Croatia sun and surf.
Unfortunately that was it, and so we left Croatia late Sunday night on our flight back to London, a little bit browner and a big bit happier.
With the main sight done, and it being way too hot for Budapest's other main attractions - its baths, the rest of the day was spent walking around in the heat (it was well over 30 degC) and taking in the city. 
After a quick run back to the hostel for our raincoats, we walked through the main shopping area of Dublin, apparently busier than Oxford St in London and the Champs Elysees in Paris, although we were far from convinced.
More walking in the afternoon, through Trinity College and a few of the parks, past St Patrick's Cathedral, and out to the Guinness Storehouse, the site where Arthur Guinness set up his brewery 250 years ago. Its a self guided tour, which finishes with a free pint of guinness at the end, which I managed to force down.
We had heard the Dublin nightlife is pretty good, and we would probably agree with that after a late one on Friday night boogie-ing to some great live music. Saturday we were up early though, we had a 9.30am train to belfast to catch. Once in Belfast we basically jumped straight into a cab for one of the black cab tours, to hear a bit about the troubles in Belfast and see some the sights and murals.
After a quick walk through the main streets of Belfast, we jumped in our hire car and cruised to the northern tip of the Ireland island, to a little town called Portstewart. We stayed the night up there in a nice little hostel near the beach, and had a nice early night.
Next stop, the oldest licensed distillery in Ireland, Bushmills whiskey distillery:
