Last night's meteor shower was pretty spectacular. The clear sky and no light pollution meant that we had optimum viewing conditions. The sheer frequency of the meteors in the shower is quite remarkable. We even got to see some where you could clearly distinguish the gaseous nature of the trail. I’d never seen that before.
However, we have to head north. The weather has not been as good as we would like for crossing the Kvarner gulf but it looks like a window has opened and we need to take advantage of it. We will do it in three legs - Zapuntel, Ilovik and Pula.
Zapintel is at the north end of the island of Molat. This location was recommended to us by Paul and Diane. It is a lovely little bay with just one restaurant but it has been thoughtful enough to place mooring buoys for the visiting yachts.
This has to have been out best “picking up a mooring” yet. I drove round the buoys to check out the depths without Lori telling me I should just pick one and get on with it. I drove up to it nicely, stopped and Lori made a perfect throw and snagged the buoy on the first attempt. This time we pulled up the buoy till it was close to our deck and we threaded our mooring line through the ring at the bottom without having to deploy the dinghy. We looked cool and were cool! Finally!
The fried squid in the restaurant was as excellent as we had been told it was and we had a long slow dinner overlooking the yachts in the bay.
It is still much cooler than we expected. The next morning there was mist and the boat was soaked in condensation - a far cry from the oven of last August.
The next leg is a short trip to the island of Ilovik. This is a pleasant little anchorage in the narrow channel between two islands. Again there are mooring buoys for the use of visiting yachts and, again, we snagged one in our increasingly stylish manner. A nice thing about this location is that they provide a water-taxi to take you over to the little town. The young man driving our taxi had visited the States a few times and particularly liked Boston. But we wonder how you can reconcile Ilovik, permanent population 100, with a major US city like Boston.
An odd feature about Ilovik is the unique dialect. It is based on the Istrian dialect of Istria and is much comparable to it as well. It is really a combination of Italian and Croatian, with many of the words being Italian. This dialect is only understood around the Lošinj archipelago and Istria, and not on mainland Croatia.
We ate what was probably our worst meal in Croatia and had some very poor wine to go with it. Ah well, it has to happen sometimes. Afterwards sitting in the cockpit, even though the sky was clear above us, we watched a violent thunderstorm over the mainland twenty miles away. Summer thunderstorms in the middle of Europe can be quite a spectacle and this one was no exception. It lasted for at least half an hour and the sky in the distance was permanently lit up by the lightning; each flash overlapped with the illumination of the preceding one. Not a place you’d want to be!
Lori is taking the opportunity to take True Colors off her moorings in the morning. It is really helpful that she is getting more capable and confident when she is at the helm in even slightly tricky circumstances.
The final leg is a long one - 38 miles to Pula. When we have a longish day like this, you may remember, we like to start early. This doesn’t waste time and gives you that bit of a margin if things don’t go as planned en route or at the other end. Today we left at 6:15. It is incredibly still at that time in the morning, no-one is stirring on the boats and the only sound is our engine and the bleating of the sheep from the little island next to us. By the time we have pulled slowly away from the buoy only the ripples of our wake are left to disturb the calm of the Ilovik morning.
Ilovik and its larger neighbors are the last islands in the long chain that stretches all the way up the Dalmatian coast from Dubrovnik. From now on (until we get back here after Venice) we will be on the mainland.
There is almost no wind for all of the trip to Pula. There also seems to be a favorable current because we are making close to seven knots all of the way. By the time we reach Istria, there are quite a few boat, many of them Italian, but most of them don’t seem to be heading for Pula. This coast is a great stopping off point on the way to or from Italy.
Pula harbor is a far cry from the islands . It is large and has a ship-building yard and a deep enough basin for large commercial ships to dock.
And they manage to have fun with the infrastructure that they have.
But the small marina is very well sheltered and close to the historic stari grad (or old town). Indeed the old town is quite a surprise. We’d never really heard of Pula as a destination before but in the next entry (when I’ve had time to take some pictures), I’ll show you what is has to offer.