9/20/2024 Vieste, Italy
Up early for an 0630 departure, we had a 70-mile run to Croatia and we
wanted to arrive in time to check in. Croatia seems to be one of the few EU
countries requiring yachts to check in prior to anchoring or mooring. The
closest place to check in appeared to be Vela Luka on the island of Korcula.
The skies were still partly cloudy, but the clouds were not so ominous. The
wind was light as we motored across in a choppy sea. We crossed the shipping
lanes dodging several ships and boats. The wind remained light for the entire
trip. As we approached Croatia the mountains loomed large, and the islands were
covered in Pine forests.
We arrived at the customs dock at about 1430. We gathered our documents and set out to find the border police and customs. A first pass through town, it is a very small town, yielded nothing. We stopped into the information center; they suggested two places. Neither place was occupied, but there were phone numbers. We were not getting the phone numbers to go through, so we returned to the information center. The women there called the number and got an answer. When I explained to the gentleman what we needed he said that they would be open in the morning. I asked if we could stay at the customs dock, and he asked if we had a vignette. No, that is what we need. He said he would come see us at the boat in 15 to 20 minutes. We returned to the boat and waited.
The guy never showed up, but we did manage to get the border
agent on the phone. He told us that we would have to Lastovo or Dubrovnik to
check in. I told him we would not sail there tonight as it was getting late and
asked if we could stay on the customs dock, he reluctantly said yes. Not long
after that port authority arrived at the boat asking questions, he said we
could not stay. We explained our situation and told him we expected to see the
appropriate people in the morning at 0800. He decided that we could stay and
whipped out his credit card machine, that will be 60 euros, no free lunch in
Croatia. We paid and were happy to stay put for the night.
9/21/24 Vela Luka, Croatia
It was a beautiful clear morning with a light breeze off the
dock. We made sure that we were at the border office at 0800, but no one
arrived. We called, but no answer. We did do some translating of the notices on
the notice board and discovered that we could get our vignette online. I did it
on the spot, 186 euros later I had a vignette. We headed back to the boat and
decided to get underway and go to the customs office in Lastovo.
We were literally casting off the lines when the guy I spoke
to on the phone rolled up on his motor scooter. I told him I got my vignette online
and he was all smiles. We told him we had come from Italy and needed to check
in. He explained proudly that Croatia and Italy were all one entity the
European Union, like the United States. In 2024 we no longer needed to check in
with customs we only needed to pay the tourist tax and get our vignette. Done
and done, we waived good bye and thanked him. Let’s go cruising!
We decided to go with our original itinerary and sail to Vis
Otok where they have been making wine for over 2000 years. The islands are all
very close here, so we had only 12 miles to cross in light wind. We found a
great little anchorage on the SE corner of the island and picked up a mooring
ball. Conventional wisdom is that they generally charge for mooring balls, or
they belong to restaurants and they are free if you have dinner at the
restaurant. These were the latter so we expected to have to go to the
restaurant for dinner, we will see if we get an invitation.
With the boat secured we jumped in for a great snorkel. There were lots of fish, Pipe Fish, Perch, schools of Sardines and many small fish that I could not identify. Along the shore there were lots of Sea Urchins nestled in the rocks. After a good long swim, we refreshed on the boat with a deck shower and prepared to walk to a winery.
The weather was perfect, sunny, nice breeze and calm seas. We hiked up a pretty good hill to get out of the tiny little town of Rukavac. It appears their primary business is scuba diving as there was a nonstop array of dive boats in and out of the harbor. We later learned that there were a number of ship and war plane wrecks that they were diving on.
We had an ulterior motive for our walk, today was my brother
Mike’s celebration of life back in Maryland and we were gathering flowers to do
our own little ceremony. For those that do not know my brother, 16 months my
younger, passed suddenly in July, a brain aneurism being the culprit. Mike had
been dealing with a long list of ailments for a long time. The most
debilitating being bladder cancer complicated by bad kidneys to begin with. As
kids Mike was my partner in crime and we were inseparable. I taught him to
climb out of his crib and lots of other bad habits. Mike went on to be a very
dedicated and loving dad and husband, he is survived by his wife Lynne, a true
saint for the care giving that she provided him, and his 5 children who loved him dearly. He can
rest more comfortably now, and the family will celebrate his life back in
Maryland, where we grew up.
We walked 3 km to the Vislander Winery where this family has
been making wine since the 1600s. Their home that they built in 1600 is still
there and they occupy it. Wine has been made on this island for over 2000
years. They had a wide variety of wines and spirits, bubbly, white, rose, red,
gin, limoncello and grappa. We tasted all of their reds, which are made from
Plavac grapes indigenous to the area. The 5 reds were made in different styles
with significantly different taste profiles. They served a generous tray of
tapas and a much needed carafe of water on this dry sunny day. We sat outside
overlooking the current vineyard growing at the base of a hill that stretched
the length of the peninsula. On the hill we could see how it was terraced and
had grapes growing long ago, but now it lies fallow and natural. Surprisingly
the place was very busy with small groups coming and going, a motorcycle group,
biking group, families celebrating and couples enjoying. The wines were fabulous,
we bought a few bottles. I will need to take some of this home to share with my
wine friends and see what they think of it.
On the way home we picked flowers from along the roadside. I kept thinking of the Johnny Cash song where he gets arrested for picking flowers, Starkville City Jail. We returned to the boat as the sun was setting and had our little ceremony for Mike; we cast flowers to the sea, poured a tot of rum for Neptune (Mike loved Captain Morgan, but today he will have to settle for Black Seal) and we rang the ships bell 8 times for Mikes final journey over the bar. We will always cherish the memories he gave us.
The restaurant had left a little flyer under a shell on the aft deck, our invitation to dinner. We cleaned up and put on slightly warmer clothes to enjoy dinner at the Diamond Beach Restaurant. It was a short row to their pier and a short walk to their beach. Another boat had come in and they were already seated for dinner, 6 Swedes. They were curious as to whether had sailed from the US and we swapped a few stories. Suzette had grilled Octopus, and I had grilled Tuna, both were absolutely delicious. The deserts were not so enticing so we left it at that and tried to pay our tab. What! No credit cards! We rowed back to the boat to get enough cash. The night was as calm as they get, the moon rose as a big orange ball and the stars shined above. So ends a great first day of cruising in Croatia.
9/22/24 Rukavac, Croatia
Up with sun and an early swim. The water is fairly clear, we could see the bottom as we sat in 15 m of water. Recent storms had clouded the water from its famously clear norm. We talked about places to go with our Swedish neighbors, and they recommend the west end of the Island and another island where they take you by rib into caves. We decided to skip the caves and head to Komiza, on the west side. We set sail under jib and main anticipating a NW wind, but it was SE so we furled the jib and put up the code zero for a beautiful broad reach along the south side of the island.
Rounding the southwest corner the wind shifted to NE, we
furled the sails and motored into the bay. We tried to find a spot to anchor,
but the best places were filled with mooring balls so we relented and took a
ball. The Port Captain came around and collected 70 euros for the night, cash,
I can see an ATM visit in my future. We settled into a fairly empty mooring
field just outside the town quay. The sun was high, and the breeze was light so
a swim was in order. Not so many fish here, but the water was clear.
We took the dinghy into town and easily found a place to tie up and explore the little town. My first observation was that it was a young bohemian sort of crowd, people playing instruments on the street, not begging, just enjoying being outdoors and playing. The town is fair sized with many shops and restaurants along the quay. No fort, but a big church on the hill with fortified walls. We covered the town fairly quickly and dinghied back to the boat. The mooring field was filling quickly, lots of catamarans and a few monohulls, mostly charters. We settled in to watch the boats go by and let our pizza dough rise in the sunshine. It is Sunday, pizza night, on the grill, perfect. We set the cockpit table and enjoyed a perfect dinner alfresco as the taxi boat skidded around hauling people ashore for dinner. It reminded me very much of Avalon on Catalina Island. We toasted the summer’s end and another perfect day of cruising in Croatia.
The night was dead calm, but as a result we found ourselves being bumped by the mooring ball. Perhaps a longer line next time. Unlike Catalina, you get only a bow line, no stern line.
9/23/24, Komiza, Croatia
We were up and out in the morning wanting to beat what would
likely be a mass exodus. The weather tonight is predicted to have high wind
from the SE, overnight rain and a chance of lightning. We had not really
selected a destination but did so on the fly. Duga Cove on the north side of
Hvar was the anchorage of choice. We unfurled the sails and enjoyed a broad
reach in 12 knots of breeze. The sun was shining with a few scattered clouds,
another beautiful day. We were amazed at how many boats were out on the water
sailing, clearly a sailing Mecca. As we neared the cove, we took advantage of
the self-tacking rig and beat our way right to the anchorage.
There was one boat anchored in the approach and another
anchored at the back of the small cove with a stern line to shore. It took 3
tries to get the anchor to set in the very hard sand bottom. We settled between
the two anchored boats. More boats came and went as the day progressed. We
enjoyed a swim but noted that there was a lot of trash on the bottom and on the
little beach. We took the dinghy to the little beach and did a beach cleanup.
We quickly filled 2 small trash bags and loaded up a plastic tote and some
chunks of foam. A boat came in and did a great job of anchoring and tying off
to the shore. We were taking it all in so we could do the same at some time on
this trip.
A charter boat came in as the sun was setting and they tried to anchor between us and the shore. We rowed over with our looking glass and they had clearly not set their anchor, and they were not in a good place. We suggested they might want to anchor outside of us and anchor well as we were expecting high wind, 25 to 30 knots. They followed our suggestion which made us feel more comfortable. The evening was very quiet and calm.
At about 0200 the wind picked up, but the cove was well protected,
we barely strained our anchor line. They wind gusts came on and off most of the
night but did not disturb us too much.
9/24/2024 Duga Cove, Hvar Otok, Croatia
The morning was overcast as predicted. The wind was light,
but we could see and hear the lightning and rain heading our way. The wind
shifted and the sky opened up for about 15 minutes before clearing to a
beautiful day. We got underway and immediately set sails for a broad reach
across to Brac Otok. Once again there were a crazy number of boats on the water
as we made our way to the pass between Brac and Solta Otok (Island). Once in
the pass the wind died, we ghosted along at about two knots to the cut where we
planned to anchor. There were a lot of boats moored deep in the cut, but we
found a tiny cove that was empty and anchored. This looked like a good
opportunity to see how we would tie stern to the beach.
It was quite a production, chain to wrap around the rocks, the stern anchor rode, shackles to attach the line and floats to make the line to the shore visible. We spent a couple hours perfecting our set up, but it seemed to work, tonight’s wind will prove it out.
Checking my email, I saw that I received 2 important emails. The first was confirming availability for a winter mooring at Lazure Marina, Montenegro. They were my first choice for wintering, but they had previously rejected me. It is a relief to have a safe place lined up for the boat. The second email was a response from Dessolator, the people who made my water maker. We reached out to them yesterday when we discovered the water maker was not working properly. Fortunately, we have a nearly full tank, but we need to address it. In the email response we were directed to contact their engineer in Spain on Whats App and he would help with a diagnosis.
It took some doing, but we managed to get him on the phone.
When asked if he could help us, he proudly said “If I can’t help you no one
can, I designed the system”. It appears that we were over maintaining the
system, let’s leave it at that. He gave us a couple go does to see which of the
two cartridges might be bad. He said we could run off one cartridge once we
figured out which was working properly. He also said that running the bad
cartridge and draining it out of the system might fix it. It all sounds
promising and no cost, fingers crossed it will work. We will work on that
tomorrow.
Our cove was quite comfortable overnight, though it did rain
hard, thunder and lightning. The storm was on top of us with lightning all
around. I was hopeful that the radio tower on the hill above us would be a more
likely target than my mast.
9/25/24 No Name Cove, Brac Otok, Croatia
The rain, thunder and lightning continued in the morning
until about 0800. The skies continued to be overcast, but it was calm and warm.
We had been tracking our friends Holly and Katie who were running two charter
boats here in Croatia. They were going to be in Hvar tonight, so we decided to
run back down to meet up with them, but first we wanted to test the water maker.
It turns out we have one good tube so we can make water at a reduced rate. The
other tube may recover, we will have to monitor.
As we were getting ready to leave a cat came in to size up
the cove. They could see there was only room for 1, but I waived them in and
let them know we were leaving soon. We gathered our ground tackle and headed
out and they pulled into our cozy cove.
We motored south past the west end of Hvar Otok and east
along the south coast of Hvar Otok. We found the cove that Holly and Katie were
in, they were rafted up in the west part of the cove. We nosed and got a little
guidance, sand line from a mooring to the shore, the sand line would become our
hawser for the bow and stern. The wind was about 12 plus W so we waited for the
Port Captain to assist. He helped us immensely as we fought the cross wind and
settled near Holly and Katie. Lots of joy in seeing our boating friends on
boats thousands of miles from home.
The moorings belonged to the restaurant on shore, Konoba Mereta, and Holly and Katie had 17 ladies between the two boats, so we were all going to dinner. The restaurant was a long narrow palapa with a huge fireplace at one end for cooking and small building for the kitchen. The fire was roaring in preparation for making dinner. As we settled into our long table for 19, introductions were made and we got to know the group. They were from all over the world with a variety of sailing backgrounds. As we enjoyed a glass of wine and appetizers a buck came down to visit us, he was fearless and had about a 12-point rack. Despite the large rack, he was quite small in size, perhaps the evolution of living on a small island with limited food.
Dinner was fabulous, a dozen whole fish were grilled and served, a couple steaks (beef not venison) and lots of vegi dishes. The fish were sea bass, sea bream and another fish that I did not catch its name, but it was delicious. There were several large groups of men off of the catamarans that came in. I think they were looking at me a little envious that I was the only guy in a group of 17 ladies…sailors. After dinner it was back to the boat where there was deserts, dancing and great conversation. Yes, we were “that boat” in the cove partying into the wee hours.
The wind blew pretty good overnight, we could hear the lines
straining to hang on.
9/26/24
Up early with pretty strong wind from the East. Holy and
Katie were away by 0915, they were heading north, working their way back to the
charter base near Split. We followed at 1030 and headed to the north side of
Hvar Otok to be shielded from the SE winds that were predicted for the next
couple days. We had a boisterous sail under a reefed jib and main. As we neared
our anchorage we had a 90 degree wind shift so we rolled in the sails and
motored into the anchorage, T-Swizzle Bay, Uvula Vlaska. We anchored on a
single hook in 8m of water. A snorkel revealed that we were in almost a
swimming pool, vertical rock walls at the shore had 7m of depth just 5 meters
off the shore. The bicycle tour boat that we saw in Vela Luka came in and
anchored for a swim and lunch, then left for another cove.
Dinner was a delicious Fajita, but we faded fast. The late-night partying with the ladies took its toll and we were in bed by 2100.
9/27/24 Uvala Vlaska, Hvar, Croatia
Slept in enjoying a peaceful night, though Suzette did say
that there were some pretty good gusts overnight. A lazy morning tinkering
around on the boat and enjoying this peaceful cove. We decided to stay another
night. We did some rearranging of our stern lines as we learn how better to do
the shore tie. A very lazy day lounging in the sun, swimming and enjoying the
slow pace.
A couple arrived on the beach, rocks, in the afternoon for a
swim. He donned his snorkel gear and a weight belt. Turns out he was fishing
and came up with a bag full of something. When we snorkeled, we saw Sea
Cucumbers, empty clam shells, lots of small schooling fish, Sea Urchins, Yellow
Tube Sponge and Mediterranean Cerith. None of it looked particularly
appetizing, so who knows what he was fishing for. The cove was empty of boats
all day, it was an opportunity to diminish some tan lines. This is turn over
day for the charters thus the lack of boats today. A little sailboat arrived
late in the afternoon, through in a hook and disappeared down below for the
night, Hedon II.
We enjoyed dinner in the cockpit
as the sun was passing below the hill. A very comfortable night at anchor with
a fabulous display of stars in a clear sky.
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