Croatia 2018 Sailing – Recollections

Overview

Click here for an interactive map of the trip

Milna to Stari Grad to Paklinski Islands

Paklinski Islands and Hvar (vist from the Bora)

Monday 9/24/18
……. We walk directly up to Sanola Castle at the top of the hill. It’s windy up top, but the walk up is very pleasant. We sing “Cripple Creek Ferry” on the the way up; “make way for the Cripple Creek ferry” and get a few smiles as we pass by other people. We sounded pretty good.

As we get back down, cocktail hour is upon us and we quickly find a wine bar and sit outside. It is a little chilly, but not bad. After beverages, we set off to find somewhere for dinner. Like the last time we were in Hvar, we have a lot of difficulty finding a restaurant; it turns out to be our longest search, made more difficult by some full bladders. We end up at Dalmacia, just up the hill from the center of the harbor. I have a nice fish soup and an octopus salad. Along with dinner we are served pre-and post-dinner liquors by our 6 or more waiters. This continuous stream of new waiters was a little weird.

Following dinner we split up (like last time in Hvar), with some going for groceries, some paying the bill, and others going to the water taxi stand in case it becomes necessary to try to keep the taxi from departing while waiting for the rest of our group; the taxi leaves each hour on the hour. It was a good thing we used this plan since the taxi was ready to go at 9pm but our grocery store contingent was not back yet; they arrived at about 9:10 and all was well. As we leave the shelter of Hvar and return to the marina, the wind is still blowing really hard.

Our plan is to depart around 8am for the long trip to Korchula town. I’m using a new app called Windy that is predicting favorable winds from the north at 12 to 15 kts. This would be ideal. It blows really hard all night with no sign of letting up. Some have difficulty sleeping due to the choppy motion of the boat in the wind and waves.

Luka Modrić, the star of the national team, is named the best football player in the world.

Paklinski Islands to Vela Luka

Tuesday 9/25/18
At 7am it is still blowing 20 kts. We are birthed near the end of the dock and the unchecked wind is still rockin’ and rollin’. Deeper into the marina where the wind is diminished by the other boats it feels much calmer. I speak to a couple of other skippers; some plan to leave, some will stay another day to wait it out. We have to press on or we will not make Dubrovnik by Friday. As we begin to make preparations to leave, the skipper on an adjacent boat gives us some advice about leaving. He suggest that we should, after pulling out of the slip, plan to back out of the marina. He suggests that I plan to maneuver without the bow thrusters, and to use them only as a last resort. He shows us how to use a windward stern line and some forward thrust to hold the boat to windward. As we are getting ready to pull out, an ACI marina employee is suddenly there; he wants to confirm that we are going to back out of the marina and not take the wind on our bow. I confirm.

As we begin our maneuver, and I begin to back up, it becomes apparent that I am not going to be able to overcome the wind … Joya has starboard prop-walk which pulls our stern toward the adjacent boat to starboard. I make a few attempts, but each time have to go forward to drive away from the line of birthed boats to starboard. At some point I finally use the bow thruster as I am backing up to swing the bow to starboard (and stern to port). Marlene later told me that she had been saying to use the thrusters on the first few attempts. I think I probably needed to convince myself that I was not going to be able to do it without them. As we back up past our birth, a large group has gathered to watch the impending disaster. We were never in trouble, and I think it all looked relatively smooth even though it required three attempts to get speed in reverse. I back up a long way out of the marina; good practice for other occasions.

As we get out into the channel (where the new Windy app is predicting 15 kts) the wind builds from 17 to 20 to 25 to 30 with gusts of 37 knots. It is a little harrowing when the gusts cause the boat to heal over with no sail. I keep expecting that as we approach Hvar and get into its wind shadow, that the wind will ease somewhat; it does not. I watch as a boat sailing close to the shore of Hvar is heeled far over and the helmsman has to head up to keep control. It looks very uncomfortable. So much for wind shadow. Another check of the Windy app confirms that winds are supposed to be 12 to 15 kts. We continue to motor and begin discussing options. Wynn calls the Korchula marina and is told in no uncertain terms “Don’t come! Don’t come!” An alarm starts sounding and we finally trace it to the radio which has received a warning message. Wynn comes up to say that I should read the message, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving the deck. We start discussing options. Marlene has done some research on a town on the northwest side of Korchula called Vela Luka. It will throw us off a day and make for a long trip one of the days, but these conditions are very uncomfortable. We decide that it is our best option. As we change course, the wind eases up a bit. We set the jib and have a nice sail southeast when the wind drops again to 10 kts. We then unfurl the main and the wind promptly dies; we motor sail up the long, scenic harbor to Vela Luka. When I finally have a chance to read the message on the radio that came in with an alarm, it states that we should expect gust of up to 70 kts. I’m glad that I had not seen it earlier – my mouth was cotton-dry as it was.

We arrive and spot a mooring ball that we like, discuss our approach, and pull off a perfect mooring. Our location is very close to town, so it will be a short dingy ride. While Vela Luka did not get high ratings in some of the literature (“one could stay in less-charming towns”), we all immediately like it. We have a 2pm lunch, then dingy ashore and walk around the small town. It shows no strong signs of tourism other than a few restaurants. We make a reservation at Skalinada for 8pm and head back to the boat.

Nap time, then cocktails with a 7:25 ISS sighting of -3.3 magnitude from the swim platform. We dingy to shore and have a very nice meal on the vine-covered porch; very relaxed and comfortable. I have a nice fish soup and tomato salad. As we get back to the dingy we find that between the receding tide and the surrounding cluster of boats, we have to move the dingy to get clear passageway out from where we have tied up. Three of us lift and then carry the dingy to a nearby ramp. I slip on some algae and go down fast on the concrete. Somehow I am not injured and only have green algae on a 1 inch diameter spot on my wrist.

Our plan is to leave at 8am for a long trip to Korchula so that we have time to see the town in the afternoon.

Vela Luka to Korchula

Wednesday 9/26/18
We depart at 8:15 and drive back out the scenic harbor. I plan to go through a cut between islands that is shown on the charts as shallow but passable. I approach cautiously. Suddenly an alarm sounds. It is never determined what the cause of the alarm is. We proceed slowly and find our shallowest depth reading at 2.7 meters. We still don’t know if that is depth below the keel or below the waterline. The draft of Joya is 2 meters.

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The marina is tight but there is no wind. This would have been very difficult with the bora-type wind. We back in and drop into a birth (the wrong birth … we should have received the lazyline from the attendant on the windward side rather than the leeward side). We have been smelling smoke since we began our final approach to Korchula. A seaplane flies overhead, skims the water to pick up water in its tanks, and flies off to dump the water on a fire burning on the adjacent peninsula of Pelješac. After a lunch aboard we walk into town and see St. Marco Church, the outside of the Marco Polo house, and the city museum. The size of the walled city makes it easy to get from one side to the other in about 5 minutes. It is a charming little city. Some of us return to the boat for naps.

Wynn and Mare return around 6pm; they have been at a wine bar and have a new best friend – the owner of the winery – and some stories to tell. We enjoy cocktails aboard then walk to dinner at Tramonto on the other side of the city. There is another ISS pass that I see from the wall on the edge of the city. Wynn and Mare then take us to their new wine bar, Marendin, and we meet the owner. He and I have an interesting discussion. He tells me that he thinks regulations are good; they create jobs and require an educated population to apply and adhere to the regulations, while bettering the greater good. However, he tells me an unrelated story of how he had to spend a day away from work in order to obtain documents that he needed for a birth certificate; he had to visit 3 or 4 locations in neighboring towns on the island. In the end, the first document that he obtained contained all of the information that the subsequent documents held. He complained of the inefficiency. I pointed out that all of the people at the agencies he visited held jobs due to regulations, but that technology had made their jobs obsolete – what if they were all out of work? He suggested that everyone should have an office job and a “field” job where they learn to work the land – he has experienced a shortage of workers to tend to his vines. In the end, not an argument that convinces me.

After we return to the boat, we realize that we left the dinner leftovers at the wine bar. Wynn hustles back to collect them. I think he just wanted to visit his new friend again. We plan to leave at 9am.

Korchula to Mljet

Thursday 9/27/18
We depart about 9:15 after John runs back into town to visit the Marco Polo house and Wynn and Mare get their final fix of Korchula – both of them loved it and decided they will return. We manage to get a group photo as well. As we depart, John points out to me that I did not use the stern line that we had discussed to help turn the boat as we depart from the narrow marina; right … it can be hard to apply newly learned information under pressure.

As we get out, the wind is blowing at about 12 kts. We unfurl sails and have a really nice 2 hour sail. It is the best sail of our trip – very comfortable and fast. Too fast to hang off the swim platform. I realize that I don’t have a good handle on winch terminology, so …

Winch terminology and technique: make 3 WRAPS, clockwise around DRUM, up across GUIDE, into SELF-TAILER, apply force with HANDLE, clockwise or counter-clockwise (two speeds).

We arrive around 12:15 to Mljet. As we approach, we spend a lot of time trying to decide how to pronounce the name of the island. We settle on “m-yet”. The draw to this part of Mljet is a national park and a monastery on a lake. It is said to be very scenic. As we pick up a mooring ball just off the shore from town, the most prominent feature of the anchorage pays us a visit; we are swarmed by bees. There are bees everywhere and they are interested in our food, our beverages, and our faces and hands that have traces of food and drink on them. To varying degrees, they slowly or quickly drive us crazy. We try using lures (a slice of beef and a sacrificial beer) to keep them on the bow of the boat, repellents (cinnamon) to keep them away from our beers and faces, and swatting. Nothing works really well, but a slice of apple and the end of a Corona with a lime occupies many of them for a few hours.

John and I take a swim (the water is a little chilly – probably 64), the girls get a ride to the park and the monastery and have lunch there, and Wynn runs, walks, and scouts out the town. It is a fairly scenic location with small castle ruins on the shore and boats continuously arriving for the night. John and I opt to hang out on the boat; John puts on some “Blood on the Tracks”, some “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis, and Steely Dan and does some work while I catch up on my journal notes. It was the most relaxing time of the entire trip for me. Over the course of the 3 or 4 hours, the bees completely devour a slice of apple.

During cocktail hour we see the ISS go overhead again. After dark we dingy to shore and have dinner at Ankora; our mooring is maintained by the restaurant owner so we are somewhat obligated to eat there. During dinner it becomes apparent that virtually all of the other patrons are from a flotilla. They are Canadian and are celebrating their last night together, giving speeches and designating awards. After dinner we exchange some pleasantries with them and discover that two from the group coordinate the flotillas for a living. They too are headed to Dubrovnik in the morning and so we jokingly challenge them to a race.

The restaurant owners tell us there are only 3 days left in the season; they are looking forward to the end. Back at the boat it blows hard for a while then calms during the night. We go to bed around 1pm with plans to leave early for our long trip to Dubrovnik the following day.

Mljet to Dubrovnik

Friday 9/28/18
At 7:45 we sail off the mooring and the wind promptly dies. This will be about the only wind that we have the whole day. On a beautiful clear day, for the next 6 hours we motor (along with plenty of other boats making the same trek) down to Dubrovnik. We have plenty of time to tell stories. We are surprised when we arrive that we are not at the marina located at the base of the wall in Dubrovnik, but instead are up a river a few miles outside of town. We wait for over an hour in a gas line that requires lots of in-place maneuvering and backing up in tight quarters. At the fuel dock, while departing there is an opportunity to use a spring line to back against to steer clear of the dock, but under pressure, I’m not able to configure it properly. I need to work on some mental exercises for spring lines.

Just after we dock the boat, I hear some neighbors talking and conclude that they are from the Canadian flotilla. They don’t recognize us, so I tell them that I’ve heard that there was a very loud group of their countrymen who took over a restaurant in Vela Luka the night before. They think their leaders may have arrived before we did.

We nap briefly, then take the 200 kuna ride to the city. Our driver talks the whole 15 minutes. I hear about the Russian-owned marina that sits unused, the other place to get fuel for the boat, his work during the war keeping broadcast TV and radio on the air (demoralizing for the enemy), how the cistern under the city can store water for 5000 people for 2 years, and how of the population of 4 million Croats, 1 million are working, 300k are unemployed, and 1.5 million are on pension. He is retired from his job as an engineer and drives for supplemental income. He said one good thing about Tito was the he put a lot of emphasis on education.

We walk the wall and see the sunset from the high, uphill part of the wall. It was very dramatic and made for some good photos. Walking the wall late in the afternoon in September was much more comfortable that walking it late morning in late June when the sun is high overhead. As we get back down to the city streets, we realize that Karen is not with us; she is not responding on her phone. It feels a bit like the “old days” when people could get lost. She finally finds us. As we go looking for a place for some cocktails, we pass by a corner where a N.O. jazz band is playing. We settle in for drinks around the corner within earshot at Poco Loco where the service is very mediocre. John’s vodka with a twist is instead some sort of flavored vodka. We go off in search of dinner.

Wynn leads us through the streets to find Ekvinocijo; I was hoping to eat there as we did in 2001 when we had such a memorable meal. We get reports that it is closed, but it still shows up on Yelp. When we finally find it, we hear the tragic story of how both the parents who were running it have died, one in a car accident. A son now runs it, but it is not like it was (although in 2016 TripAdvisor gave it very good reviews). We ultimately settle on dinner at Rosario, a restaurant recommended by our talkative driver. It sits back a few block and up the hill from the main street. It was good. As we leave the city, we walk along the back street. There are still lots of full restaurant tables outside; it is a very lively atmosphere. We call a driver and settle in to bed early.

Saturday 9/29
We are up at 7am for our departure time of 9am. John and Karen are going to stay another night in Dubrovnik before going on to Italy. The four of us have the long ride up to Malinska ahead of us. A guy shows up promptly at 9am. He is going to drive the boat back to Trogir – a 24 hour ride – by himself. So the boat was not rented the following week! We wait for our driver who is supposed to meet us at 10am. We finally call at 10:15; he is waiting for us outside of the gates.