Reading the dictionary backwards - Zut - Zadar

We decided to head for a marina to be safe if a storm developed.  Our various forecasting apps were giving very different predictions of what was to come.  Zut is part of the Kornati National Park and has a remote and austere character but it is well-protected on almost all sides.

We arrived safely and secured ourselves pretty tightly.  We started to get worried when one of our weather models started to predict winds of over 100 mph - the others showed nothing like this.  Then I took a look at broader area and the odd model predicted the same kind of weather for almost all of northern Europe - for an hour!  Somebody was clearly having data quality problems.  But we had other models still showing some bad weather ahead.

Many smaller super-yachts started to arrive in anticipation of the storm. In the end we stayed in Zut for three nights and only had really windy conditions for one morning.  But bad weather is predicted again for the upcoming holiday weekend in Croatia.  Glad to see that it happens for other countries too!

Zadar is an attractive old town with many yachting associations but it can tend to be very busy.  So we parked (very badly) over the channel in a little town marina at Preko.  We have been hoping to finally do our laundry and get some work done on the boat. The laundry was successfully executed but the upcoming holiday makes getting work done a bit of a problem.

This is not Lori or I doing the laundry.  It's a curious subject for this local statue.

This is not Lori or I doing the laundry.  It's a curious subject for this local statue.

The marina here is tight and badly affected by the wash caused by the local ferries; it can be very rolly at times.  Fortunately the ferries don’t run at night but the daytime can be quite challenging. The nights have their own issues - a party on the town quay on the evening prior to the holiday.  The live music started about 8:00pm and continued until 3:30 am.  Frankly, there’s only so much Euro-pop I can stand.  We didn’t sleep much.

We don’t like the prospect of staying here with a strong wind blowing, so we will head to another marina across the way for at least a couple of days of the weekend.

The Marina Dalmacja is really very well laid out.  It is spacious and managed by pretty helpful staff.  Looking at the weather we have decided to stay here for four nights.  Sunday is showing gusts of up to 50 mph - not the kind of weather in which to be uncertain of the security of your mooring.  Apparently this marina is quite sheltered compared with even close-by locations on the same coast.  We should be able to take advantage of this as the weather unfolds.

They also have good number of services here.  There are a couple of things I’d like to get fixed.  Not least of which is the master toilet.  It’s annoying (and messy) if things get blocked up.  I’ve managed to clear it all but haven’t been able to identify the location of the blockage. Fun times!

Red sky at night is not always a good sign ...

Red sky at night is not always a good sign ...

It is Sunday and the wind is blowing as strongly as predicted (perhaps a little more so). We won’t go far from the boat today until the wind lessens sometime in the afternoon.  The (heavy) wooden boat upwind of us has only two fenders out and neither of them at the widest part of their boat.. We compensate by adding six of our own between us. People should be better equipped and prepared.

The showers in this marina are about the best we have seen.  The shower block is architecturally well-designed and the notion of showering in a stall with one clear glass wall to the outside is striking!  The only parts of the facilities we would criticize are the restaurants - few and not very special - and the supermarket - tiny and under-stocked.  There doesn’t seem to be anything close by either but we will investigate.

Lori got a pedicure in the spa here and now has cute pink toes.

It depends on what the meaning of Iz Iz*

We spent two very peaceful nights in Luka Telascica.  The first was calm, but the second was really calm - not a ripple on the water and not a breath of wind.  The stars were crisp and clear with a hazy grey background of all the more distant starts that are too far off to differentiate with the naked eye.  The Milky Way was easily distinguishable and the shooting stars cut long knife-sharp arcs into the backdrop. We are steaming music now with TIDAL and it is slightly surreal to be able to provide whatever soundtrack we want to all this - Leonard Cohen, Jacques Brel, Julie Fowlis …

On a more prosaic note, the outboard works!  I was worried when it wouldn’t start immediately but once I got it going it purred nicely and could be managed in a predictable fashion.  We can go places now!

Lori swam this morning with no protestations.  She was fully in the water before I realized it.  This is progress.  I think she is having fun especially with the water warming up as we move into August.  That reminds me, August is Italian month.  They vacation this month and head over to Croatia in their powerboats.  It’s only about 70 miles or so and they can be here in about three hours.  Croatians don’t seem to be quite sure what to make of this.  While the influx of people means an influx of money, it is also a quite stressful.  The flamboyant Italian approach to life, parking, and pricing grates against the Croatian psyche.  With every blessing comes a curse…

We need to start moving north to meet up with Pam and Brian. We have plenty of time (too much really) but there is another storm lining up and we need to be cognizant of its intentions.  We are heading to the island of Iz - a little north east of where we currently are.  We don’t know anyone who’s been there but it looks to be pretty and about as authentic as you can get in this area.

Iz Veli is a little harbor that has been made into an informal marina.  We park in about 10 knots with no particular problem.  But as soon as we are settled the marinero wants us to move sideways a little to make sufficient space for a boat to come in on our starboard.  We do so.  About three hours later, a boat does come in on our starboard but the space is too tight so another marinero wants us to move over again.  Indeed we found him on our boat moving our lines without even asking us! Not cool and very annoying.  But we soon are moored securely again.

Tonight is the night of the Iz Feast.  In a ceremony that dates back to the 17th century, each year they elect a”king” (who has no powers) and have a festival with speeches, singing and dancing.  Some of the men and women are in traditional costumes and everybody is down on the quay for the celebrations.  As darkness falls, the king and his entourage make a procession by boat to the other little village on the island and back again.  There are fireworks and flares and people blowing rams horn trumpets.

The king comes ashore and the speeches start. 

They are clearly funny - the old guy in front of us is chortling with laughter.  However it’s all lost on us because we don’t speak Croatian.  As we walk back to the marina, we come across a group of four older women sitting on a bench singing traditional songs.  Indeed all the benches seem to be filled with four older women chatting or singing. We wonder just how long they and their forbears have been doing this. The dance begins and continues on into the night.

In the morning life goes back to the normal routine of fishing. We’ve seen this on other islands too, here people fish with traps.  They put some kind of bait into rigid wire mesh box-like devices and drop them into the water.  Some time later they return and retrieve them with fish flopping around inside them.

With no apologies whatsoever to Bill Clinton, by the way, it's pronounced "Eej"

Retracing our steps

We are on our own again; Jim and Tracey, with a few hiccups, made the ferry ride to Split and are starting their cycling tour.

We motored up to Frapa in winds that became increasingly strong.  What started as 10 or so knots on our nose ended up at 25 as we turned into the marina.  The sea was more rough than the winds would suggest and we were bashing through some surprising waves.

The marina is fairly sheltered so we were parking in about 15 knots.  There were a number of boats in line and we just had to wait our turn for the marineros who were very busy.  We parked very smoothly and Lori did a great job getting all the lines on.  She now has a new skill added to her repertoire - here the marinero likes to throw the lazy lines to the boats.  She was expected to catch them on the boat-hook! 2 for 2 - smooth!  Can she add this to her Linkedin profile? The marinero remembered us from our previous visits and welcomed us back.  They are good here; much better than many of the ACI marinas.

We met up again with Paul and Diane (the couple from Scedro) and had a pleasant dinner on the dock as thunderstorms grumbled over the mountains.  We heard the final act of their GPS-based nightmare.  Apparently the Garmin equipment had been installed incorrectly and not only was their GPS being inaccurate, but also their radar and AIS were not working.  They had basically had to sail with a damaged boat and no reliable electronics all the way to Split at night. Well done!

We will stay here for two or three days to get things in order and plan our route to Pula.  Lori is pleased for many reasons: 1. she will have air-conditioning while we’re here, 2. she can get a mani-pedi in the marina, and 3. the supermarket here is a potential source of her meat pastries!

Our first day here was one of disappointments: the laundry couldn’t do our laundry for 5 days and, more crucially, Lori didn’t get a pastry again.  We did some of our laundry by hand and got the sheets dry on the lines on the boat - good drying weather.

It’s day 2 and it is starting off well for Lori.  The supermarket had the pastries!!! Needless to say she enjoyed hers, and there is the prospect of another one tomorrow.  On a more practical note, there is a Mercury outboard service center here and they are going to look at our outboard.  It has not worked well (almost not at all) this year despite it supposedly being serviced at the beginning of the year..  We’ll see.

Day 3: Motor is fixed (but I haven’t had the opportunity to confirm this).  So we are leaving and heading north to Kaprije again.  A good sail for most of the way.  The wind is about 10 knots and we are really pinching to try to make our destination without a vast amount of tacking.  True Colors does really well in this kind of wind and we pass many boats on our way to the island.  We are steadily gaining on a Sense that is larger than us and faster than us (or should be).  Apart from my superior helming it is Lori's fine sail trimming that makes the difference.

As we near the island they take their sails down.  Shame! We do not. However, we don't quite make the entrance to the little channel that takes us to the harbor.  So we throw in two quick tacks - just as the ferry is coming in the other direction!  But we are cool, pass port to port and slide smoothly into the bay leaving all our (unaware) competitors in our wake. 

Kaprije remains one of our favorites - nothing fancy but a genuine charming family town.  It’s also great for getting good walk up over the hill to a gorgeous bay full of islands.  Just the thing you need before breakfast.

We retrace our steps one more time and move on to Luka Telascica.  It is a great sail for about 2 hours with 12 knots of wind and we are close-hauled doing more than six knots.  We park again using the lasso technique and it is smooth and perfect. Almost.

We get ourselves on the buoy easily and we launch the dinghy to make the final adjustments when we see than an oar is detached and in the water.  Lori goes after it in the dinghy (with one oar) and despite super-human efforts fails to snag the oar and reconnect not to the dinghy.  Oh, by the way, it is blowing 15 knots by now.  Lori is adrift.  Enter tall young German on jet-ski.  He grabs the dinghy with Lori in it, tows it to the oar and returns all three to me on the boat with a big smile. This is why the Germans really should run the EU (if they don’t already).

We will hang out here tomorrow and do some planning for the next month.

 

How to solve a problem by doing nothing

At breakfast I was still not very happy about the prospect of sailing Jim and Tracey back to Marina Frapa and requiring them to take a taxi into Split for the start of their bicycle tour.  Then it occurred to me that people come to Solta from Split for the weekends and longer vacations.  How do they get here? By ferry, of course.  There is a little ferry port on the other side of this island with a direct service to Split Old Town.  It is very frequent.  There is a bus service from the town nearby that goes directly to the ferry dock.  Problem solved!

So we decide to have a land-based day and explore the island a little.  Walk into Maslinica- a beautiful little village wrapped around an equally beautiful harbor and small marina.  It is busy with day-trippers and other tourists and has a lively but relaxed atmosphere. 

We wander around and stop for lunch in a wine bar that is run by the same folks who run the restaurant we ate in last night.

We also run into Valentina and her friends who work in the wine bar.  We talk about island life and their plans for the future.  They seem very focused on being successful in the new Croatian economy.

The bus to the ferry port leaves from a spot just next to us and we think that it would be a good idea to test Jim and Tracey’s logistics for tomorrow.  So we take the bus to the ferry and everything looks like it will work as advertised. Getting back takes a little time due to the bus schedule, so we walk round a beautiful little village with really old tone houses and its own castle. 

The villages here are surprisingly reminiscent of those in England with little narrow streets that go round sharp bends and must make driving a challenge at times.

It is Jim and Tracey’s last night and we eat dinner in Maslinica. It has been a great week and they have brought some good sailing weather.  It has been cooler than we feared and we hope that it will remain so for the more strenuous part of their vacation.  But it sounds like they will continue to have fun and see more of this beautiful part of the world.

For us, we will head north to Marina Frapa hopefully dodging a little storm that is predicted to pass by late today.  The next few days will be focused on boat maintenance and preparation for the trip north towards Venice.

Can you marry a grape?

Now we have to head back south.  Being this far north, the next couple of days will be fairly long in order to get Jim and Tracey back to Split in time for their bike tour.  Split in itself is proving to be a problem.  We would be arriving on a Saturday but because of charter boat changeovers there is no room in the marina.  This is not typical in other parts of the Adriatic and it makes route planning a lot more complicated. I need to work on another plan but for the the next couple of nights our destinations are straightforward.

We head for Krakije.  This is the little town where we had accordion music on the quay a week or so ago.  The route takes us through a narrow channel just at the entrance to the park.  It is only 25 meters wide and 4.2 meters deep and is busy with traffic going in both directions.  It’s not hard, it just requires some concentration.  Once through, we pick up an almost favorable wind and have a great sail south to Krkaije.  Jim and Tracey take turns helming and Lori gives instruction of the finer points of sail trimming.

At Krakije, the quay is pretty empty when we arrive but I manage to create a sloppy dockingout of nothing.  I still can’t work out why.  But we moor safely and are tight against the quay.  We eat dinner at “Neptune, House of Food”.  I have scallops everyone else has pizza.  We take a walk after dinner on the path that runs between the houses and the bay.  Everyone is out doing this.  It’s 9:30 and even the little kids are out playing. 

Jim and Tracey buy a shell from some small entrepreneurs who have set out their wares by the side of the street.  We are not sure but we suspect that this may be their first transaction.  Out of small beginnings, global empires can be made.

A small crowd is watching two me are playing boule.  The players’ concentration is remarkable.  They are completely focused on the game and their shots.  They don’t look up or look at their audience; all their attention is on the game. We wonder how many years they have had this rivalry.

The next morning we all get some exercise before breakfast.  Lori fails again to find meat pastries in the little bakery.  Things are getting critical and she has to settle once more for spinach.  What has happened?

We sail south again to Sesula.  The wind is again not quite favorable but too good to miss.  So we take wide tacks in about 12 knots and maintaina boat speed of greater than 7 knots forthree or four hours.  It’s what sailing is all about.  It’s good experience for Jim and Tracey who look like they are enjoying themselves.

In Sesula there is a little restaurant called Sisimis (Bat).  We ate here before and were impressed.  They have an interesting mooring approach with your bow and stern attached to the same fixed line.  Doing this is a little tricky and everyone needs the help of the guy from the restaurant in a dinghy.  But we get tied up without incident.

On the way to our table in the restaurant we meet Valentina who runs the wine bar .  She asks us if we would like to try some really good Croatian wine.  We are all up for this.  Wine in Croatia has been surprisingly good but we have suspected that there is more beyond what can be purchased in the supermarkets.  Ans there is.

Jim asks Valentina what her particular favorite is and she enthusiastically tells us about Bacic which comes form a vineyard outside of Primosten just to the north on the mainland.  We each try a glass and are unanimous that it is very good indeed.  It seems to be almost the only wine Valentine drinks . She enjoys it so much that she says she could marry the grape!  It is wonderful to meet someone who is so committed to her work and her enjoyment spreads contagiously to everyone she encounters.  It is great to see this attitude in Croatia.

Fueled by the wine and a lovely Posip Intrada we have a beautiful and very animated seafood dinner (tuna, sea bass and monkfish) on a little veranda overlooking the bay.  A very special restaurant.

What's the collective noun for a group of super-yachts?

Jim and Tracey have settled smoothly into the cruising groove.

Lori and Tracey, after many protestations, slipped into the (apparently cold) water of the bay and had a quick swim before our departure.  It is a lovely spot but we should have chosen the other restaurant.  Ah well …. we’ll know next time.

The weather is being a little awkward.  It’s not that there’s any really bad weather.  It’s just that where the weather is cuts down our options.  I eventually decide that we will shoot for the northern direction and see what develops.  Primosten is a possible destination with Marina Frapa as a good backup.

In the morning we have periods of wind up to 18 knots largely on our beam.  It makes a good refresher for Jim and Tracey who take turns helming and look perfectly comfortable.  The wind dies a bit in the middle of the day and then picks right back up again to about the same level,. Again it’s a beam reach and we make 8 knots under sail for over two hours.

Primosten is not going to work.  We were advised to call ahead and, when we do, there is not a mooring open.  So Marina Frapa it is and we arrive shortly after 2:00. .  We stayed here before and this time we get a little more time to enjoy it.  We walk round the bay to the old town with its limestone buildings and drink a glass of wine in one of the little bars on the quay.  Tracey buys a hat.

We eat dinner in one of the restaurants in the marina and have a much more satisfactory (and appropriately priced) experience with the tuna, squid and octopus all being excellent.

After a quiet night, we set off early to see how far we can get in the direction of the Kornati islands and the national park.  The wind is not exactly favorable but we are making more than 6.5 knots under the engine so we decide to go to our farthest option - Luka Telascica. We spent a night here last week and I, in particular, liked it a lot.

As we are approaching the Kornati islands, there is a pod of dolphins swimming lazily in the still water.  Its stillness makes the dolphins appear even more languid than usual.  We hang around and watch then for about 20 minutes and get some good photos and videos.

It is windy as we pass through the Kornati National Park but the 12 knots are pretty much on our nose.  It makes for a choppy ride through channels that are busier than last time.  We pass a pod of super yachts just outside the north end of the park.  The largest is 115 meters long, needs a crew of up to 46, and was purchased for $300m.  Their jet-skis have AIS - helps you know where the kids are, I suppose.

We arrive at our mooring by about 3:30.  Our patented buoy lassoing technique isn’t quite so smooth this time.  We manage to snag the buoy quickly enough but getting a line through the ring on the top is frustrating and not helped by the wind.  Our freeboard at the bow is quite a challenge when trying to reach down to the ring. We need to refine this approach. or use an alternative that Jim has proposed.

This is the place with the mini-market boat and the ice-cream boat.  The ice-cream guy’s timing is perfect and we can’t resist.

We eat on board, watch the moon rise, chat and play music until late.  It's a little odd streaming music on TIDAL in the middle of one of the remotest bays in all Croatia. The summer wind has died and the water is so calm that the line from ourbow to the mooring buoy is hanging limply and the buoy itself is resting peacefully against the boat.  It stays like that all night.

Short-handed no longer

The harbor is still a bit lumpy even a day after the storm.  But the winds are abating significantly and we can get off the boat. We are surrounded by Yacht Week kids waiting to start the next round of this event.  It is also “Ultra 2” - a five-day music festival at multiple venues in Split.  So the town is packed with bleary-eyed twenty-somethings recovering from the previous night’s festivities.

On the other hand, we have one very elegant neighbor.  She is Lionheart - a J-class yacht whose origins reach back to the America’s Cup races of the 1920’s and 30’s.  She is built for racing and there are, I believe, only 10 boatslike her in the world.  This is understandable because she is over 140ft long and cost $15m to build.  Lori uses this knowledge to advantage and chats to their crew who are suitably flattered.  Sadly she did not manage to get on board.

We spend a day getting the boat ship-shape for Jim and Tracey who will arrive late on Sunday night.  They are coming from Dubrovnik by hydrofoil. We eat dinner in the old town of Split and wait for the arrival of the ferry.  The town is busy but we start to appreciate some of its charms.  It will be good to see it again later in the season when it is not bursting at the seams.

Jima and Tracey arrive a little late.  They have been moving through the remnants of the storm and the latter part of the ride has been pretty bumpy especially when you are traveling at 30 knots.  However they are safe and sound and we transfer them by water taxi to the marina and True Colors.  Some wine, cheese and fruit in the main cabin but it’s really time for bed.

The next morning is fine and sunny.  Jim goes for a run and Lori goes looking for her special pastries.  We ate these last year; they are a nautilus-like spiral of flaky pastry with various fillings of which Lori really like the meat.  She has not had much luck getting them this year even though we know the stores that sell them.  I struck out trying to get them for her yesterday and she strikes out again today.  She is looking frustrated and disappointed.

But, however important this is, we can’t dwell on it.  It’s time to be on the move.  However the Yacht Week kids decide to leave too and we have to wait as a steady stream of boats passes across our bow.  We gradually cast off all our lines and ease out into the harbor.  We are going to head for Brac today.  We believe that our destination will keep us clear of the Yacht Week flotilla and enable us to have a quiet night.

The plan is sound but the flotilla is heading in our direction (but not to the same destination).  They also intersect with about six large party boats at the narrowest part of a channel at just the same time as we are making our way through it.  And, by the way, the wind is blowing 17 knots.

We are surrounded by about 30 boats all more or less going in the same direction but cutting across each other (and us) with varying amounts of skill and speed.  Fifteen minutes of having to have eyes in the back or my head!  But Lori, Jim and Tracey are also on the lookout and we eventually shake them off and find our little bay with its mooring buoys and snag one for the night.

The restaurant that runs the mooring is a little haphazard.  They have a menu but very few dishes are available.  The highlight was Lori and Tracey’s branzino (European sea bass).  Although the Med has been over-fished hugely, some wild fish of the highest quality can still be found- at a price.

We spend a peaceful night under the stars.

Shelter from the storm

We are hunkered down in the marina.  Typically in this situation we are moored against a floating pontoon and secured by three lines; here there isa concrete pier between us and the wind and we are secured by seven lines.

It is just as well.  The weather has developed into one of the two “dangerous storms” they get here each summer.  In the Velebit Channel (north of us and a notoriously windy spot) they are anticipating winds gusting up to 100 miles per hour - off the top of the Beaufort Scale.  Here it’s not so bad.  We can expect “only” gale force winds. But we have some friends who are up that way and they have already left their boat for a few nights in a hotel - keeping an eye on their boat from the security of dry land.

We have spent most of the day watching the wind intensify and the charter boats return to harbor.  Most of them look like they have had a rough time of it.  They are not equipped skill-wise or gear-wise for this kind o f weather.  It is their summer vacation after all!  The charter companies do a good job.  They put their own skippers onto the boats and don’t allow the clients to park them.  Sensible from all perspectives.

We eat dinner on board.  In fact we haven’t left the boat all day.  Then we watch a movie.  The night is not too bad.  About 12:30 we are both awake and the wind is howling.  This continues for about a couple of hours then it subsides but only a little.  I get back to sleep but Lori stays awake until about 4:00.  We both sleep until 8:00.

The night has fortunately been uneventful and we hope things continue this way.  The wind is due to continue to lessen over the next 36 hours (which is just as well because that’s when Jim and Tracey will arrive).

Hopefully we will get off the boat today and get some provisioning done.

In which Lori swims (and Colin does too)

We push on north into the park.  It’s not a vey big park so our days can be fairly leisurely and we can enjoy a lunch stop.  We anchor in a wide bay on the west coast of Kornat.  Anchoring for lunch is a more casual affair than anchoring for an overnight stop - someone is always going to be on deck keeping an eye on things.  But we are dig in pretty well and the wind is not very strong.

Lori has been plucking up courage to go into the water.  As most of you know, she is not a very confident swimmer and the water has been cold enough to dampen her enthusiasm even more.  But todaythe water is perfect and there can be no excuse. She eases herself slowly into the water and armed with a noodle becomes a water baby again.  Needless to say, she has fun. I maintain a watchful eye from the cockpit.

After lunch we motor on to the third of our recommended restaurants in this area.  It is on the little island of Levrnaka.  It has a nice pontoon and a couple of guys to help us moor stern-to. We are early enough that we can have a leisurely afternoon and watch other boats arrive.  We also get to order dinner.  The time it’s tuna carpaccio and tuna tartare for starters and a fish stew in a style from one of the local islands.  All really good.

But there is something mercenary about the restaurant(a tendency that we’ve seen elsewhere in Croatia).  For example, the meals are not cheap but they levy a cover charge on top of the meal prices.  So effectively you’re paying for mooring and then being required to eat at the restaurant.  This is the kind of thing that causes many people to choose not to cruise in Croatia.  It’s a great pity but fortunately there are still some wonderful places and wonderful people equal to the best anywhere we have been cruising.

We need an antidote.  So we go farther north into the Lake Telascica Nature Park.  A step down fro a National Park but many steps up in terms of charm, solitude and, surprisingly, service.  Mooring buoys are provided for visiting yachts and we find a quiet corner of the last bay where there are only four of them.  We pick up the buoy moderately well, pay our park entrance fee and settle down in one of the prettiest anchorages i have been in.  Then the local mini-market boat turn up offering fruit, veg, bread and wine.  We buy some for today and order more for the next morning.  This is great!  The mini-market is followed by the ice-cream boat.  A guy is motoring around with ice cream in a freezer, no doubt selling it to all those families with kids who don’t have freezers on board.  Things are so relaxed that Lori and I both go in the water.

But there is a big storm brewing in the Adriatic.  When the Adriatic decides to have a storm it does so with an enthusiasm that is entirely out of proportion to its size. Winds in the Mediterranean tend to have the same names (with local language variations like Mistral, and Maestral) and are related to the direction of the wind.  Croatia in particular and the Northern Adriatic in general has a special one called the Bora (or Bura).  This wind comes out of the north and can be pretty ferocious in the winter.  In the summer, it is a little more mellow but still is a wind to be pandered to.

Orange is bad, but Split is the blue dot

Orange is bad, but Split is the blue dot

We are quite a way north of Split right now but we decide to get back there as soon as possible.  We stop off at Marina Frapa on the mainland about 25 miles northwest of Split.  It is a nice high-quality marina and we easily get a visitor’s berth on the outside of the wall.  The night is calm but the storm is getting closer, so we leave early the next morning for the ACI marina in Split.  We try to book for five nights but the online system is only taking bookings for two.   They say to call.  We do and the lady on the line says there is no problem they have plenty of space.  Lori calls again to try to get a booking number.  Lady says that there is no need, they have plenty of space.

We get to the marina and call them on VHF saying we have a booking for five nights.  They say we can only stay two nights but we insist.  There is off-line conversation and they come back and say “OK”.  We get the last internal spot in the marina. We are parked next to a young man who manages a large powerboat.  He helps us tie our lines really tight in anticipation of the wind.

We go over to the marina office to pay and the man on the desk says that we can stay only two nights.  We say that we have had multiple people tells that we can stay for five.  He says that he must call the captain of the marina.  He does this and the captain says that we are good to stay.  The guy on the desk does not look happy but he processes our transaction and we are good until Monday.  Sometimes people make things hard for no good reason.

Now we hunker down for the storm and wait for Jim and Tracey.  More on Split itself in the next post.

And She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes ....

We are now in the vicinity of Split where we will pick up Jim and Tracey next weekend.  This is new territory for us, so we have time to explore.

Our first stop is another restaurant recommended by the skipper on the boat next to us in the marina.  It is on the island of Scolta which is the smaller sibling of the island of Brac both of which lie a few miles south of Split.  We were going to do a little island - big island two-day trip but the schedule of the Yacht Week flotillas takes them to Brac about now, so we’ll give that a miss.

Sesula is a pretty little bay with a restaurant set on the hill above it.  Here we encounter yet another variation on mooring.  There are buoys but they also have a line ashore.  So you pick up the buoy as usual but then have to run the same line to the stern of the boat and tie off there.  Weird but effective.  The second variant is that we have a neighbor on the buoy.  After we tie up, another boat arrives and rafts up against us.  We hold them in place and the buoy holds both of us in place.  They’re going to have to leave before we do or we’ll have a Siamese twin for our next sail.  They are a nice Swedish family but we don’t chat much after the initial pleasantries.

The restaurant is lovely with friendly and attentive service.  We both feel like meat tonight and Lori has boneless chicken thighs and I have stewed deer neck.  Both are excellent and we enjoy our meal as the sun sets over the bay.

It seems almost that Split represents just that - a division between the big islands of the south and the much smaller islands of the north.  The character of the islands has changed also.  In the south they are often quite green (except where the bora blows), but here they are much more rugged and barren.  They are not without charm, but it is the charm of remoteness and the sense that the only thing that shapes this place is nature itself.

We sail at about six knots to the island of Kaprije.  This is one of the islands that lie off the coast of Sibenik.  It has only one village and no cars.  The village ambles along one edge of a perfect little bay. Its physical connection with the outside world is by means of the two ferries that dock at the little quay twice each day.  People come down to the ferry with boats, wheelbarrows and little hand tractors to take their goods from the mainland back to their homes; tourists with suitcases walk to their little apartments.

We are parked on the town quay and so get a first hand view of all this.  There are a couple of restaurants in town but the simple-looking one by the harbor has been recommended.  And rightly so.  It is by no means fancy but the tuna pate was excellent and my scallops served in the shell were fresh, juicy and perfectly cooked.   After dinner, we strolled along the bay and were interested to see that each little house had its own little jetty and mini-harbor for their boat.  The sea is just that fundamental here; it is transportation, sustenance and in many cases livelihood.

By the time we get back to the boat, the music has started,  Somebody on a little motorboat has an accordion and is playing.  People on the other boats obviously know the songs and are singing enthusiastically.  It is strange to be sitting in the near dark listening to people sincerely make music and entertainment in much the same way as they have done for hundreds of years. - no contrived pandering to tourists here. The sense of community is very strong.

The next morning we head north into the Kornati islands. These islands make up a national park that is treasured for its remote beauty.  There are a few hamlets out here and habitation is almost entirely seasonal.   Anchoring is restricted to some small marinas, restaurant moorings and a very few bays.  Close attention is paid to maintaining the environment.

The weather is pretty much dead calm and we motor past the bare little islands to the ACI marina at Piskera.  We have never been the first sailboat to arrive in a marina.  We are today.  There are three power boats and all the rest of the pontoons are empty.  We park and ask is this is normal.  Apparently not, but no explanation is forthcoming.  Maybe it’s just the time of the week; charter boats will be in their base today changing crews.

By the late afternoon, there are five sailboats in the marina.  Next to us is a jazz septet from the Czech Republic.  They have brought their instruments and play stylish jazz standards until dinner time.  They have been playing together for almost seventeen years and are clearly very comfortable entertaining anyone who cares to listen. It is great fun and oddly the music seems totally in keeping with ther ugged terrain around us.  We eat on board with a live music accompaniment.

A Tale of Two Islands

Just north of Korcula. there are two islands - Hvar and Scedro.  Scedro is by far the smaller of the two but we were looking for a quiet little spot after the excitement of the night before.  There are really only two places you can spend the night on Scedro - both of them small bays on the north side.  We get there in the middle of the day and check out the first bay.  It is already full, possibly only with people stopping for lunch, but you can’t tell.

In the second bay there is a tiny restaurant which has put out half a dozen mooring buoys.  Three are occupied, two are “reservated" but one is free!  We grab it.

When I say “grab it”, it’s not quite as easy as that. If you recall, in Saplunara a nice young man comes out in his boat, directs you to a buoy and helps you tie the boat to it. Here there is no-one in sight. So we will have to do this ourselves.  The main problem is that the buoy is in the water and whoever is trying to grab it is on the boat about five feet above it.  You have to moor the boat using a rope (the pendant) that is attached below the surface of the water to the line that tethers the buoy to the bottom. Using the boathook is possible but fraught with risks - grabber ends up in water, boathook ends upon water, both grabber and boathook end up in water.

We have done research on this problem and armed with (theoretical) knowledge from a book encouragingly called “Stress-free Sailing”, we decide to employ the lasso technique.  This involves throwing a wide loop of line (attached to the boat of course) beyond the buoy and letting it catch on it.  The theory is that physics, the wind and careful driving will do the rest.  The first attempt is a near miss but, surprisingly, the second attempt is entirely successful - the line settles behind the buoy and catches on the line at its base.  At this point, with the work almost all done, the guy from the restaurant turns up in his boat and says “Can I help you?”.  We let him help with the final touches and we are snug for the night. 

Shortly after another little boat turns up.  This time it is a young local man selling wine, bread and a couple of other staples from his boat.  We buy some of the local wine and order bread and croissants(!) for the next morning.  Croatian entrepreneurship at work.

During the afternoon the bay fills up and all the buoys are occupied.  A couple of additional boats anchor where they can but they don’t look as comfortable as being on a buoy. One of them is American on an extended trip like ours.  Lori rows over to say “Hi” to Paul and Diane and later we have some wine in their cockpit and talk about the usual topics - Brexit, the EU, Donald, Hillary etc.

They confess that they are not too comfortable with the holding in the bay are are expecting to spend a wary sleepless night keeping anchor watch.  We leave them and have dinner in the little restaurant - only three things on the menu; we tried two of them and both were delicious.

Once we are back on the boat, the wind starts to pick up a little.  The bay is open to the north and strongish winds are expected tonight from that direction.  The boat that is on the buoy behind us leaves about 9:00 pm.  Not a good time to leave.  Then we see the American boat start to move around the entrance to the bay.  They are obviously no longer at anchor.  They weave back and forth and suddenly there is a loud crunch.  Their bow has hit the rocky shore.  They do not appear to be aground and they do not appear to be in danger of sinking but it’s hard to tell in the dark.   There is frustratingly little that we can do to help.  However, they seem to be somewhat OK and the boat makes its way out of the bay for a destination unknown.

The postscript to this incident is that we contacted them by email and discovered to our relief that they had made the overnight trip to Split and were damaged but safe in the marina there.  They said that they had been checking their position on their new GPS system and it told them they were still in deep water when they hit the rocks.  You can’t always trust the technology but you pretty much have to when it’s dark and you’re in a confined space.

Later that evening the second anchored boat leaves in a pretty untidy fashion.  We couldn’t tell if their anchor dragged too or if their stern line was somehow no longer holding them, but they were in very close proximity to another boat when they finally got things under sufficient control to leave.

Ironically, there is no real wind overnight but when we wake in the morning there are only three of us in the bay. Bread arrives, we have breakfast and cast off for the larger island - Hvar.

One of the things that this part of Croatia is known for is “Yacht Week” and its variants.  What this is is a week-long skippered charter in a flotilla of boats.  This is very popular with young single people. The vast majority of them are not particularly interested in sailing and are happy to let the skipper do the work. A typical Yacht Week day’s schedule is: sleep while skipper takes the yacht off the mooring, recover from previous night’s hangover, have lunch in a bay and swim, sleep in the afternoon to prepare for the evening, get into the next port, start drinking in preparation for the night’s activities, eat dinner, go “island clubbing” or beach barbecuing until the small hours.  (If anyone thinks I am exaggerating, there are websites that give you this kind of information and tell you how to “prepare” for Yacht Week!.) I can best liken this to a loosely connected floating dorm where the students don’t even have to pretend to be studying.  

Hvar is party central.

To avoid as much of this as possible we do not try to anchor off Hvar town but go to a little marina in the adjacent archipelago.  Almost a good plan.  The party-goers are here too.  In fact the group that is here has been banned from Hvar for their behavior.  We are concerned.

But in reality it is not that bad.  It’s crowded and a little noisy but we’ve been in worse places that don’t have the same kind of reputation.

Hvar town is surprisingly charming.  We had heard good things about it but they were always tempered with the noise problem (particularly at night),  You would not want to spend a night on the quay here. - too many bars, restaurants, clubs and people 30 feet from your stern.  But go two streets back from the water and you find a quieter old town with many Venetian influences and a 13th century fortress on the top of the hill. Around it is a vast botanical garden focusing on local herbs and other plants.   It is like a huge natural rock garden with a spectacular view across the town to the sea.

On the boat next to us in the marina we had met Maroje who was skippering a catamaran for a British family.  We got into conversation and asked for his recommendations for any restaurants in town,  Mediterraneo was one of his suggestions if we wanted to taste what the local cuisine was really like.  This was tempting because Croatian food can sometimes be a little plain - good raw ingredients but not very inspired. So we ate lunch there and it was really quite special - John Dory in Tiger Shrimp sauce, Sea Bass with Shrimp and a lovely local rose in a beautiful setting in an old courtyard just behind the post office.

Korcula

Korcula is the island adjacent to Miljet and is about 12 miles away.  The marina can be very busy, so we decided to take the ferry from Polace to the main town (which is also called Korcula) - a 45-minute ride directly to the old walled town.

Korcula is yet another of the Venetian fortified towns like Valletta, Corfu, Dubrovnik and Kotor.  It is hard to say which is our favorite.  We like Valletta because it is so impressive; we like Kotor as it is the most characterful; but we like Korcula because it packs so much into its small size.

We have one practical mission today - establish wireless internet connection for the boat and for our first guests, Jim and Tracey, who will arrive in two weeks.  It has been a mixed bag getting onto the internet in the countries we’ve visited.  In general the service coverage is excellent with high-speed wireless available almost everywhere. In Greece we have a wireless hotspot and you can (with some difficulty) top up your minutes as you use them up. We never cracked the code in Montenegro but used the excellent facilities in the marina.  As far as devices are concerned, here in Croatia a wireless hotspot is the way to go (or a USB stick for a computer).  You can buy SIM cards in many stores and at the Post Office.  It was there that we found the devices that we need alsoSo we’ll see how good the coverage is especially when we’re away from the main islands and towns.

Logistical task out of the way, we focus on wandering around the narrow streets of the little town and eat some lunch in one of the old restaurants inside the city walls.  Korcula was the birthplace of Marco Polo (inventor of the game that bears his name and discoverer of the land trading route to China).  References are everywhere but it’s not as bad as the Game of Thrones souvenir tidal wave in Dubrovnik.

After a relaxed afternoon, we take the ferry back to Polace for our last night in the park.  Tomorrow we will set sail for Korcula (this time under our own sails) but aiming for the far western end

The trip is uneventful; very different from when we were here last year. Then a forest fire had taken hold on the south side of the island and fire-fighting planes were scooping water out of the sea and dropping it onto the flames.  There is smoke from one fire this year but it seems to be small (at least for now).

Our target is a small bay at the end of the island which is supposed to be charming and quite protected from the moderate winds we will have tonight. It is certainly charming but the holding is not as good as we had hoped.  We try to free-swing at anchor but it drags when we put any stress on it.  Plan B is taking lines ashore in addition to the anchor.  We do this but are not entirely sure that things are fine for the night.

We have dinner and talk with Lori’s mom over FaceTime.  The connections is a bit patchy but it lets us connect just enough to be satisfactory.  We are pretty remote, so this may be all we can expect.  About 9:00 pm the wind picks up and the anchor drags sideways.  It is getting dark; time to go to Plan C.

When anchoring, we always discuss what we would do in the specific location if just such a situation arose.  In this case it was a pretty orderly exit.  Lori did a great job grabbing the lines from the shore and bringing them back to the boat while I used the engine to keep the boat in place.  Then it’s up with the anchor and on to our fallback location.

We had talked about this one as we came here.  It is a “bay” formed by two islands and a sandbar.  It does not in theory offer as good protection from the winds as our original spot but the anchor sets at the first attempt in 2.5 meters of water and we put out lots of chain.  Despite winds in excess of 15 knots we are solid all night (though we do keep a wary watch on our position).  It keeps you on your toes!

We had said that we wanted to spend this night under the stars in a remote location but our original anchorage was not quite that. However the second one was perfect, almost no lights to be seen and an incredible number of stars filling the sky.  It is impossible to get tired of this.

In the morning, smoke from the forest fire on the island is spreading to the adjacent bay.  It doesn’t look too bad yet and hopefully it won’t get too much worse.

Miljet

Miljet (pronounced “myet”) is the first large island north of Dubrovnik.  It runs parallel to the coast for about 23 miles but is less than 2 miles wide.  After failing again to anchor in Lopud, we headed for Saplunara at the south end of the island.  Saplunara is a beautifully sheltered bay with a few holiday homes and a couple of restaurants.  One of the scenarios for overnight staysin Croatia is that restaurants provide mooring buoys that you can tie up to free of charge as long as you eat in the restaurant.  On this occasion the winds were forecast to gust to 35 - 45 knots overnight and a mooring buoy is a pretty safe place to be when it blows like that.

When we pull into the bay, a young guy from the restaurant comes out in a dinghy to help us moor.  He remembers us from last year!  He probably remembers the boat more than us but it’s a surprising and pleasant welcome.  The folk in the restaurant remember us too.

There is a Scottish couple at the table next to us and they are from Glasgow.  Inevitably the conversation turns to the “Brexit” vote.  We ask them what they think.  The word they use is “horrified”.  They deeply resent the English making such a stupid and short-sighted decision.  They fear not only damage to Britain and the EU but also see the break-up of the United Kingdom as a distinct possibility.  As a result, some people in the UK are having second thoughts and wondering if they could run the referendum again.

The next day we take a walk up the hill behind the little hamlet and strike off along a forest path to some archaeological excavations.  If Kolocep was remarkable for its songbirds, Millet is notable for its butterflies.  They are everywhere and in all different colors - yellow/orange, vibrant blue, black/yellow etc. Not too many pesticides in use here.  The tiny ruins are of a 2nd century AD church with an 11th century church inside them.  The church is dedicated to St. Paul.  The old name of Miljet was Mileta and that is the name of the island where St. Paul was shipwrecked.  The other “Mileta" in the Mediterranean is Malta and it usually gets the credit as the site of Paul’s mishap but some people seem to support Miljet as a plausible alternative.

After a couple of nights in Saplunara, we head out into the channel between Miljet and the mainland and point north towards the other end of the island.  It is a great day for sailing.  We have 10 - 15 knots of wind just far enough off our nose to allow us to beat up the channel at about 7 knots.  The sky and the sea are both exquisitely blue and we are surprised by how few sailing boats there are here.

But one of the yachts that is here makes up for the absence of others.  She is “Prana”; a 60 meter sailing super-yacht (which is fairly uncommon) that can be chartered with its crew for a mere $185000.  We had seen her in Kotorin Montenegro and wondered what she would look like under sail.  Today we got to find out.

We were doing 7 knots. She was doing over 11.  So to find ourselves heading towards each other at a combined 18 knots tends to focus the mind just a bit.  Couple that with the large ferry that was running parallel to Prana at about 20 knots and the sea was starting to feel quite crowded.  We tacked to put ourselves on the same heading as Prana and we got to enjoy watching her slide past before we tacked back onto our original course behind both her and the ferry.  It felt neatly done.

At the north end of Millet there is a national park with two beautiful inland saltwater lakes.  It is a great place to walk so we intend to spend a few days here in a little bay with the small village of Polace on one shore. 

Polace has about 40 houses but this year they are building a bypass.  It makes sense because the small street along the quay is narrow and has locals and visitors in cars, on bikes and on foot making it difficult to make progress.  You pay a modest fee to stay here (for a week) and this must be the source of the funding for the road.

As I said in an earlier post, we wanted to see if Croatia was stepping up to the needs of a tourist-based economy and, here at least, we can say that they definitely are.  The park has been spruced up since last year - new benches, new signs, tasteful trash bins and landscaping all make for a very pleasant atmosphere.  As we walk to the lakes there are more butterflies and the air is filled with the scent of the wild honeysuckle which is blooming everywhere.  The other flora that Miljet is know for is orchids.  They bloom particularly well here apparanetly.

On an island in one of the lakes there are some Roman ruins and a little monastery.  This was probably a prime spot to be a monk - surrounded by tranquil warm water and beautiful foliage, it must have been perfect for meditation.  

It also has some donkeys

We eat dinner in a little restaurant on the quay in Polace one evening and the owner remembers us from last year. He recalls that we were here with Pam, Brian, Ali and Jeremy and that we liked his pizza (which we still do).

We enjoy the park for a couple of days and on the second day when we get back to our anchorage there is the inevitable super-yacht parked in our vicinity.  This is not a problem but the guests are hitting golf balls of the back of the boat!  They have a little floating green and the yacht crew are going around in the dinghy picking up the floating (specially made for this purpose?) golf balls and bringing them back to the boat.  The people do this for about four hours!  Miljet doesn’t have a golf course so I suppose the alternative of flooding it to achieve the same effect was not open to them.  Do people not realize how stupid they look?

As we are watching this with jaws agape, a little dinghy pulls u at our stern with Jacques and Sylvia in it.  He is French-Canadian and she is Argentinian but they live in Italy.  They saw our flag and thought they would come over to say “Hi”.  We chant and they invite us for dinner on their boat with their Polish friends.

Dinner was immensely enjoyable.  Conversation ranged across Donald and Hillary, Brexit, the EU and globalization. Lori was particularly struck by the multi-cultural perspectives and getting to see how accepted norms in one country can be unacceptable in another. Fascinating and fun.

For our last day here, we will take a trip across by ferry to the adjacent island of Korcula.

Onwards to Croatia (or Blame Norway)

More about Norway later.

We had a great final dinner in Montenegro with some of the best fish we have had on this trip.  The restaurant overlooked the Gulf of Kotor and was set in the grounds of an old mill - very rustic and very calm (apart from the geese).

The next day we got up at 5:00 to check out of Montenegro at an early enough time to get into Croatia in the middle of the day.  All this worked well and we were cleared out of the country and off the dock by 6:00 am.  We had to dodge a cruise ship[ that was coming up the bay but fortunately it was a small one.  Look at the pictures in the previous blog entry and you will see just how much room they can take up!

An uneventful trip to Cavtat which is the first port of entry into Croatia.  We had had some issues checking in to Croatia last year so we were a bit nervous.  However, it was all easy and straightforward.  We were clearing in behind a British captain and the Harbormaster was mocking him for the British “Brexit” vote and suggesting that he might like to emigrate to Croatia ifhe wanted to stay in the EU. The captain took it with good humor but was clearly uncomfortable withBritain’s new role as source material for EU jokes.

Of all the places we visited last year, Croatia was our least favorite.  Not that we had a bad time here but it seemed that, unlike Montenegro for example, it had not yet developed the right kind of service culture for an economy that is increasingly heavily dependent on tourism. We are not alone in this view but, on the other hand, we met some very nice people and visited some very lovely spots here last year.  Part f it was, no doubt, that Croatia was a very different sailing experience than Greece - more organized, busier, more fee-based and less easy-going. But this did not deter us from coming back and we hope to appreciate more of this beautiful country this season.

We headed on up to Kolocep which is about seven miles north of Dubrovnik.  We like this place.  It is a quiet little island that has no cars and a convenient ferry service to Dubrovnik.  (This is where Norway will come into the story).  We spent a quiet night at anchor but the next day we had some pretty severe afternoon thunderstorms with two very close lightning strikes and torrential rain.

After all that died down, two Sunsail boats crewed by Norwegians came and anchored close to us but spreading themselves across the entrance to the bay.  We have been impressed by the ability of Croatian ferry captains to maneuver large ferries in small spaces but the Norwegians looked like they were setting a major challenge.  We were fairly sure that they were unaware of the ferry service but they did not remain in ignorance very long.  A large white ferry appeared and pointed directly at one of the Norwegian boats.  We have never seen a crew move a yacht out of the way so quickly!  It was all good fun until the next morning ….

We went for a walk.  As I said this island has no cars, a few walking paths that people use to get between the two or three little villages and about a million songbirds that sing their hearts out every day.  While we all have songbirds at home, I think familiarity with their songs makes them less impactful.  Here there are new birds with some very beautiful songs. So enjoyable!

By the time we came back, the Norwegians had left. But as we were settling in for breakfast a little boat came up and told us we must leave because the ferry was coming.  No amount of explaining that we had been here for two days made the situation any better.  We had to move or be fined by the police.  We surmise that the ferry captain had been annoyed by the Norwegians the night before and was exercising his right to have free passage to his ferry quay -  fair enough.

We sailed a couple of miles to Lopud, the next island.  Lopud is our bete noire.  We cannot anchor here successfully.  That is not quite true.  If we wanted to anchor for lunch, it’s straightforward.  That’s what many people do and we’ve done it before.  But if you want to anchor overnight, you have to be a lot more sure that your anchor is well dug into the bottom. The bottom in Lopud is covered in thick weed; most anchors don’t do well in thick weed.  Even our state-of-the-art Rocna doesn’t like it very much.  It’s just hard to get the anchor through the weed and into the bottom.  So we tried a few times, weren’t happy with the holding and moved on.

One of these years, we’ll succeed.  I am sure champagne will be involved.

 

We were sitting in this Lebanese restaurant in Montenegro ....

Now, you know that the rest of this blog can’t match that title.  You feel there should be a joke there somehow but it still eludes me.

So, Porto Montenegro (Tivat) where we currently are is pretty sophisticated.  It has a Lebanese restaurant, a Japanese restaurant, a number of high-end fashion boutiques, a very upscale hotel and a number of very nice apartments.  For those of you in Phoenix, think Kierland Commons on the water.  As I said before , this place is lining itself up to be a major super-yacht marina and in the medium-term I don’t think small boats like ours will find a place here.  They are marketing to super-yachts from the Middle East and the marina is configured in such a way that it can easily switch from “small” to “super”-sizing without any major engineering. But for the short-term it is a South of France experience in the Adriatic.  Expensive but quite enjoyable.

We have spent five nights here tinkering with the boat and fixing a few things.  I fixed an air-conditioning problem!!!  This is more of a big deal than it seems because AC and refrigeration are black arts that need special wizards to come and fix them on boats.  It’s much better if you can do triage before they come anywhere near.

Kotor is a whole other experience.  This is a town further into the only fjord in the Mediterranean (A not totally geologically-accurate description apparently but the effect is pretty much the same.)  This little walled town fits into the same mold as Valletta, Corfu and a couple of places we might visit on our way to Venice.  For you Game of Thrones fans, it’s a lot like a mini Dubrovnik.

If Porto Montenegro is manufactured fantasy, Kotor is organically-grown reality.  No marina, just a nice little town quay which is separated by a road from one of the best farmers’ markets we have seen.  The range and quality of the produce is quite amazing and the prices (even in a tourist spot) remain good.  Here you can buy olive oil from the woman who pressed it and cheese from the guy who milked the goats. 

We will stay here a few days and make some trips into the Montenegrin mainland.  We did a little of this last year and enjoyed it a lot. The other thing that we will do here is climb up to the top of the fortress above the town.  The rough path and steps go pretty much straight up about 900 ft to the top of the fortifications.  It takes about 30 minutes to get up there and is best done before the heat of the sun reaches the path - 7:00 am departure.  We will do this at least twice while we are here.

Perast is the first of our trips.  We could conceivably do this in True Colors because it is on the shore of the bay but it is a nice change of pace to visit by taxi and water-taxi.  In the process we meet another wonderful taxi driver, Tony.  He recommends a restaurant (pretty good),  drops us off and arranges to pick us up after lunch.  In the process, we sign up for a private tour the next day to the old capital of Montenegro, Cetinje, via “the old road”,

Kotor, as I said, is in a fjord.  The mountains round this fjord are about 8000 ft high.  To get out of the fjord, the old road zigs and zags its almost single-track way through 25 bends to the top of the mountains.  The smell of the pines and the spring flowers is quite special and the views down into the Gulf of Kotor and back to Tivat are sincerely spectacular.

Over the top of the mountains, we end up in a Swiss scene with meadows of hand-cut hay, cows grazing in the fields and little alpine cottages with steep roofs for the snow that falls in the winter.  This is the land of cheese, prosciutto and wine - all local.  Lunch will allow us to sample that but first we will visit the old capital.  Just to be sure, we stop at a restaurant among the hay fields and make our orders for lunch - roast lamb.

Montenegro is a small country that was a monarchy until just before the First World War.  On the way we pass the very modest farmstead where the royal family originated.  Cetinje is a small town with broad pedestrian areas around the royal palace, a monastery and a few other buildings of the monarchy.  Tony says this is the heart of Montenegro - without Cetinje Montenegro would not be Montenegro.  It is very special to Montenegrins and it is quite charming to us.

We take the same road back and stop at the restaurant where lunch is ready for us.  We sample the cheese, the prosciutto and the fresh bread before the main course of roast lamb and potatoes. All washed down with a couple of glasses of the red wine made at the restaurant.  Apparently many Montenegrins, as well as having their own vegetable gardens, have their own vines and make their own wine - a serious amount of self-sufficiency.

And, in the middle of all this, Britain votes to leave the EU.  What on earth were they thinking?  Montenegrins here are scratching their heads. It’s really hard to turn the clock back in the way that the pro-leave voters seem to want to do.  But a history of entrenched positions and no strong appetite for EU reform has clearly been fertile ground for exit. It will stop people asking us about Donald Trump for a while, I suppose.

 

Ciao Bella!

The weather has been strange this season - everyone is saying so.  Brindisi has been a bit of an exception, though.  For the past few days, Brindisi weather has been good but everywhere around has been having rain, thunderstorms and strong winds.  

We need to go to Montenegro. Firstly to keep to our planned schedule, secondly to get us out of the Schengen visa area and thirdly to get the boat out of the EU.  The Schengen visa area, which allows EU nationals to work freely in other EU countries, restricts non-EU residents to 90 days out of any 180 in the EU.  So on longer trips like this we have to balance the days we spend in the EU against days we spend outside it.  The outside options are Croatia and Montenegro (which is also out of the EU).

Montenegro is a small country on the Adriatic coast between Albania to the south and Croatia to the north..  It’s about 100 miles from Brindisi to the nearest ports in Montenegro, so this has to be an overnight trip.

But, before I talk about the trip, a final note on Brindisi.  Brindisi is an ancient town that has been in existence for thousands of years.  It has a great natural harbor that was used by the Romans.  Indeed Brindisi is the end of the Appian Way, the Roman road (started in 312 BC)  that runs 350 miles all the way from Rome.

Nowadays, Brindisi is a dusty, industrial, typically southern Italian town that mixes elegant buildings from a couple of centuries ago with pretty ugly modern construction.

Planning an overnight involves making sure that the weather is not likely to deteriorate especially when it is dark.  We tend to be cautious when it’s just the two of us and motor-sail the night hours to avoid too much work with limited visibility.  This time we have just one weather window - getting out of Brindisi before it finally gets its share of bad weather and getting to Montenegro just before it gets hit by another batch of storms coming down the Adriatic.  The forecast says we will make it most of the way across before the winds pick up a little (but still within the bounds of comfort).

This time the forecast was perfect.  We left about 2:00pm (in order to arrive off the Montenegrin coast at daylight) and, after an hour with the motor,  we sailed at 7 knots for about anotherfive hours until it was getting dark.  We motor-sailed the rest of the way.  The winds did pick up as predicted to about 15-20 knots in the latter part of the night but, apart from Lori being a bit tired,  we were fine.  It is always good to get to a coast when it is light because fishing boats tend to be out in the pre-dawn and it can sometimes be difficult to thread your way through the boats even with radar to help.

Our original planned destination was Budva where we had spent a great few days last year.  However, the strange weather meant that the wind (and the predicted winds over the next few days) were coming from the south - not a good direction for the berthing there.  So we changed plans and I sailed about 20 miles up the coast to Tivat (where we were planning to go anyway).

Tivat is a very sophisticated modern marina development targeted at super-yachts.  I’ve not said much about these but they are becoming very common in the Mediterranean.    These boats can be enormous (we’ve seen them up to 150 meters long),  Typically they can be in the 40 - 60 meter range. 

While many are private, quite a few are chartered on a weekly basis (think $150,000 per week and, yes, that's the right number of zeros). They are so large that they don’t fit into many of the little places (especially in Greece) and they tend to have to anchor off or limit their ports to ones large enough to accommodate them.  We’ve seen many where the people don’t get off in the evening.  They eat meals (prepared by their chef) on board and never really get to enjoy the local sights and specialities.  We don’t get it.  A lot of it seems just to be an aggressive demonstration of conspicuous wealth - not pretty.

It was windy (10 - 15knots) when we parked and we had a bit of a mixed bag with the wind blowing off the customs quay (tricky to park; easy to leave) and then snugging up quite well tucked away in a corner of the marina next to another American boat.  We’ll stay here for a couple of days - maybe renting a car to go off into the hinterland on Friday.  I will get my haircut (ending my English sheepdog look) and Lori will get a facial.

"I think I need a haircut.  Can you help?"

"I think I need a haircut.  Can you help?"

"That's better!!!"

"That's better!!!"

Puglia

While we had planned to spend a few days here, the weather is constraining us to use Brindisi as a base and not to sail True Colors up the coast to Polignano this time.  The is not a big constraint.  We have rented a car and can visit pretty much the same places as we would have done from Polignano.

Our first trip was to the village of Ostuni a white-washed hill town that overlooks the fertile coastal plain and the sea.  One thing you notice around here is the dark orange color of the earth.  It is made more noticeable by the fact that in this region the ground under the olive trees is weeded and tilled providing a beautiful contrast to the grey-green leaves of the ancient olive trees.  Olive trees and grape vines are everywhere and we haveenjoyed driving the back roads through the farms and vineyards.

Ostuni is apparently a secretly chic place.  Movie stars and musicians have homes here (although you wouldn’t know it) and while we were in the area a famous Italian tennis star was to be married here.  It is a charming spot with white-washed houses, narrow alleyways and tiny squares.  It may be the time of year (for we are still early in the season) but it is not busy and it is very pleasant to stroll around the town with no particular itinerary or purpose other than to soak up the atmosphere.

The next day we headed for Lecce.  this would have been easy if the main road had not been blocked with traffic for one reason or another.  So we took off along the back roads again with no good map and a vague sense of the right direction.  If you had a bird’s-eye view of our route I am sure it would have been hilarious but we got there in the end.

The center of Lecce, the old town, is truly remarkable. I don’t know what we were expecting but it far exceeded any expectations we might have had.  Our first objective, however, was to find lunch rather than just a snack in one of the many cafe bars.  Down a side street off the main square, we discovered a little osteria, Mama Lupa’s (Mother Wolf).  Osterias are the next step down in sophistication fromtrattorias.  This means that the food is fairly simple but not diminished in quality when compared to the more fancy menus of their siblings. We had grilled veal served on lettuce leaves and accompanied by grilled mushrooms.  Simple but delicious. We have been struck by the fact that, in both Greece and Italy,  portion size seems to be inversely proportional to the quality of the ingredients. When you have such exceptional produce with which to cook, you don’t need vast quantities to satisfy your clients; they appreciate the quality rather than the quantity.

According to the waiter in the marina coffee bar, Lecce is called “the Amsterdam if Puglia”.  But it didn't have any canals that we could see, so we were not exactly sure why it would have this nickname.  We checked Wikipedia when we got back.  It thinks Lecce is “the Florence of the south”.  Much more sensible.

The baroque architecture is almost more stunning than that of Florence.  I think it is because it is more approachable and less overwhelmed by cars and tourists.  While Florence bustles with business and people, the old town of Lecce with its narrow alleyways and broad piazzas hadthe relaxed feel of a university town like Oxford or St. Andrews. Interestingly enough, Lgcce has links to the Greeks.  Its founding can be traced back to the time of the Trojan war (Odysseus/Ithaca) and in the area around the town a local language call griko is still spoken.

To wrap up the day, Lori demands gelato.  You can't come to Italy and not eat some ice cream, she says.  So we sit in a little gelateria overlooking the Roman amphitheater and, with the evident blessing of Saint Oronzo, eat ice cream made by people who have never heard of high fructose corn syrup.

Our third day trip was to a little town quite near Ostuni called Ceglie Messapica .  This is another white-washed hill town but this one is renowned for its food and wine.  We found a trattoria and enoteca (meaning that it is proud of its wine local wine list) called Cibus. Lori loved the small dark and hot olives that came to the table.  We’ve never seen that before. The “wheat pie” appetizer turned out to be cracked wheat baked in a white sauce with truffle oil and a little melted cheese. Delicious.

When I write these thoughts covering a period of a few days, I don’t do it all at once.  So it is coincidental that the roast lamb we had was yet another example of quality far outweighing quantity.  The lamb was roasted with a little rosemary, no sauce, no gravy with just a plain baked potato as accompaniment.  We both agree that it is probably the best roast lamb we have ever tasted.  We had a bottle of the local Puglia wine, Primitivo - dark and rich in flavor.  This is certainly one that we will seek out when we come home.

As you can see, we’re getting into the whole Italy/food thing. but may only have another day to enjoy this before we head off for the less inspired cuisine of Croatia (more on that later).

We finished the day sharing a bottle of wine in the cockpit of True Colors with our agent Cristiana. A great socio-political discussion covering movies, the differences is perspectives and attitudes of the many different nationalities that we encounter and the inevitable question.  “Who are you going to vote for? Trump or Hillary?” Generally and specifically in this case, people in Europe are scared of the prospect of Donald as president and don’t understand why there is so much hesitation about Hillary as a viable alternative. It would take more than a couple of hours to even scratch the surface of that one.

Paxos and Corfu

An overnight test of the resolution to our issue seems to indicate that we are good to go.  So we decide to set off early in order to get to Paxos (our intermediate stop) in time to park comfortably.  Some of our new friends and acquaintances really recommend this approach and it certainly has its benefits (even for Lori, who as we all know, doesn’t really wake up until after her second cup of coffee).

We leave the marina at 6:30 in the morning smoothly and peacefully.  The first challenge is that there is a swing bridge at the north end of the canal.  It only opens once an hour and just long enough to let boats pass through.  It’s narrow and again great fun when you meet a barge coming the other way,  Beyond the bridge is a shallow area that silts up a lot and is one of the reasons for the barges.  They have made this area much better but we haven’t seen any updated charts so you just have to assume that everything is more or less the same as it was (only deeper).  We’ve done this quite a few times now and familiarity really helps to keep any stress down.

The whole trip from Lefkas to Paxos and Corfu can be a little uncomfortable because you are heading northwest into a prevailing wind which pretty much comes from that direction.  Today we are fortunate.  There is a little bit of swell at the beginning but everything stays pretty mellow all the way.

It’s about 33 miles to Lakka on Paxos.  This is one of our favorite places with a lovely bay with the most beautiful turquoise water.  It’s everyone else’s favorite too (of course), so it fills up quickly and parking is about as close as you’d ever like to see it,  It is one of those “frog in boiling water” things.  When there are five boats in the bay you think it’s tight but you squeeze in somehow; soon there are ten boats in the bay and the next arrivals think it’s a bit tight but they squeeze in somehow; soon there are twenty boats in the bay and the next arrivals …. well you get the idea.

It’s also pretty shallow.  Having only a foot or sometimes less of water under your keel can be interesting.  All your instruments show there is no water for the boat to float in but somehow she does.  The real challenges are waves which make the water alternately deeper (good) and shallower (uh-oh) and wind.  Shallow depths and a crowded anchorage imply not too much anchor chain can be put out but if the wind kicks up you need all that weight to stay put and not drag into other boats.

Fortunately the night was calm (as forecast).  We left early in the morning again.  We had only half-heartedly considered it but decided to let our sleep patterns make the decision for us.  Our sleep patterns were too slow in coming to a conclusion and were pre-empted by the Swiss crew on the boat next to us who left at five-ish in the dark with headlamps, spirited exchanges and much engine noise.  We dozed for a while but were pretty much awake.  So we left at about 6:30.  A beautiful morning with no wind and a gorgeous sunrise with patches of mist on the water over by the mainland.  The elements stayed benign all the way to Corfu where we docked (inelegantly) just in time for lunch.

Corfu town is a bit like a smaller version of Valetta - similarly rich in history, militarily significant and with a strong commercial tradition.  Whereas Valetta still has many commercial ships in its harbors and lying in the roads outside, Corfu’s sea traffic now consists mainly of pleasure craft and cruise ships. The island itself is picturesque (especially from the sea) and very green.  The green comes from the 3 - 6 million olive trees that cover the island. (Some of them are over 400 years old).  Apparently olive oil from Corfu is really very special and the good stuff is hard to find anywhere other than on the island. A bit like French wine in France, I suppose.

Anyway we will be here for a couple of days and I will try to take the time to talk about the town itself.  The forecast says there might be rain (!) but hopefully that won't impact our excursions and photographs.