After our windy day yesterday and divert to the shelter of Kremik marina, we set out today to finish our route up to Sibenik. This town is situated a couple of miles inland and is accessed via a long and deep narrow ravine leading to a large inland lake. It was interesting pilotage and looked a reasonable place to stay for the night. During the entrance in the ravine, the pilot book advised us to keep an eye out for the old WW2 submarine caves built into the rock.

We moored stern to on the quay in gusty conditions and waited around until another boat had come in next to us before heading off for an explore.

Unfortunately the town didn’t seem that fantastic. It had all the usual churches, narrow streets, smooth marble flagstones in large plazas and of course the castle on the hill protecting it from seaward invaders but seemed to lack a focus and character. The church was interesting, in that all around the edge were carved heads reputably of citizens too tight to contribute to its building costs – so everyone would know the tightasses… Bit harsh!  

We walked around, tramped up to the castle in the sweltering heat to get some picture (as usual) and came back to the boat for a pleasant on-board bbq. It was a bit like feeding time at the zoo as people strolling along the quay would take a good look as they passed by. We even dug out some marshmallows to toast for desert, which wet down a treat and gained a few envious looks.

Started heading north today into the northern Adriatic. True to form we encountered a steady force 6-7 with gusts over 30 knots. Deviated from our intended destination (Sibenik) to a sheltered marina called Kremik as the entrance to Sibenik is through long channel with very high sides that would have been very difficult in strong winds.

A great plan today – we decided to head off to a lovely quiet anchorage, settle down, have a swim and then tune in my laptop’s TV card to watch the British Grand Prix and then the Tennis (we’d seen from the day before that both were being shown on Croatian TV’s sports channel)

Reception has been great everywhere we’ve been (not that we’ve watched anything apart from a few Euro 2008 football games) but we somehow managed to find a bay with a complete reception hole. 

We couldn’t get anything but a very very flickery picture – disaster!

Given there was nothing we could do we resorted to the shortwave radio and the Word Service, but even that reception was poor, so we ended up in strange positions holding the radio up high with one hand on the aerial and the other on the boat rigging to get the best reception. 

We managed to listen to most of the game – albeit in a short wave fading in and out sort of way. After 7pm BBC World service stopped broadcasting so the last few games of the mammoth 5 setter were “watched” in desperation via the laptop and mobile phone data connection on Wimbledon’s web site scoreboard, with us tracking play by firstly the “speed of serve” indicator being updated (telling us they’d served) followed by a delay (whilst they played), then the scoreboard changing. Not much action, but tense for us anyway watching the numbers change.

How we watched the men's Wimbledon final! 

Meanwhile Beck was at the match! Quite envious today!

What an epic, and for us relief when the ticker finally ticked over to Nadal “9” instead of deuce again.

Yesterday we anchored off the town of Trogir, where we picked Tony up a week ago. A pleasant evening and then up early to get him off to the airport.

Jax and I then came back to the boat, loaded up the bikes and headed off to Split 20 miles around the coast. The ride was hot, but good exercise. On the way we found a mall and quite unusually headed in to a MacDonald’s for a cool drink and milkshake. Naughty but nice given the heat. Split was interesting and had an amazing fortified old quarter with underground shops and markets.

Statue of Gregorius of Nin in Split (10th century Slavic religious cleric leaderwho fought for the right to perform mass in Croatian!)

After touring around we ended up collapsing at a quayside bar for food, where by chance the women’s final was on. Fantastic. We haven’t watched any Wimbledon this year and it was great to make our meal last and catch some tennis. Unfortunately it was a long match and we had to leave for our 2 hour cycle ride back to the boat before the end. Anyway, we knew Williams would win!   

Today whilst sailing we noticed a large yacht coming towards us down the channel. The AIS received showed us that it was Drumbeat, a 173ft (53m) superyacht from New Zealand. This picture shows the size. Look very closely at the bow to see a man standing there to get a full appreciation of the scale – its huge!

The yacht has 11 crew and up to 10 guests. Its fuel tanks give it a range of 8000miles and have a capacity of 49000 litres. That’s about £50000 per fill up!

More details here for you avid yacht spotters here…

http://www.yachtspotter.com/ysp2_ycard.php?foo=20060323

Hvar is Croatia’s self appointed party town and it didn’t disappoint. We arrived early and just about managed to force our way in to a quayside berth right in the centre of the action. The town is situated at the end of one of Croatia’s largest islands and dates back to Roman times with a large castle on top of the hill, large marble paved courtyards and walkways and tall sided narrow streets.

The town was also packed with large tourist tripper boats carrying generally Australian backpackers. This had the potential for a messy evening with hundreds of students drinking and enjoying the warm evening. After looking around the town and hiking in sweltering heat up to the castle (at Jacqui’s insistence and despite Tony and my whinging) where we found some great views of the town, the harbour and the nearby Pakleni islands where we have anchored a number of times. Obviously there was a charge of £5 each to look around the deserted castle, but that is normal for Croatia.

We went to a couple of cocktail bars later in the evening and enjoyed a couple of beverages. Carpe Diem is the most famous and best situated, overlooking the harbour. We finally retired around 2am, but the aforementioned Aussie backpackers took the party through to the morning with noise, shouting and general drunkenness.

Tourist tripper boats in the background...

I was up at 7 for a run, a little shaky and dehydrated but generally ok. Only a couple more days for Tony, so we set off for our favourite anchorage at the nearby Pakleni islands for a chill out day in the sun and sea.

Tony Arrived a few days ago. We picked him up from Trogir, a town 2 miles south of Split airport. Friday and Saturday are busy charter boat changeover days when the marinas are closed to visitors so couldn’t moor. Instead we headed in to the port for 10am, anchored off, had a text message from Tony saying he was at the quayside and zoomed in on the tender to pick him up – all very slick.

For the past few nights we’ve alternated between nice quiet anchorages and small towns. Sunday night saw us in a small town called Vela Luka on Korkula island to moor up and head off to a restaurant and bar to watch the Euro cup final. Fantastically Spain won, which was even better since the place was full of expectant Germans – all very quiet afterwards.

The weather has been very hot and calm, meaning we haven’t done as much actual sailing as we’d hoped, but we did get a spirited 5 hour sail tacking up one of the narrow channels between islands – which was fun and good experience.

We were very lucky a couple of nights ago when we headed out to one of the outer islands called Lastovo for the evening. Our anchorage which had 5 or 6 boats in it when we arrived gradually cleared come evening until we were the only ones remaining. We had the whole bay to ourselves, which was amazingly peaceful and beautiful. The waters were crystal clear and warm at 31 degrees.

Tonight we’re heading to Hvar town, which is bound to be very busy and a renowned place for great bars and a bit of nightlife. Needless to say, Jacqui is a bit excited at the prospect of a few cocktails.

Left Vis earlier and motored 15 miles east to the Pakleni islands. This is a hugely famous picturesque chain of islands east of Hvar. They are absolutely stunning, with crystal clear water that is so clean you can see over 5m down to the bottom.

We have spent the evening in a fantastic anchorage with only a few other boats enjoying the warmth of the evening sun. We even managed to pick up a bit of Wimbledon on the world service via short wave radio. I bbq’d a bit of meat and some veggies for Jax whilst she rustled up some couscous, beans and feta to go on the side.

Once the sun had set we headed down below, set up the computer with TV USB card and watched the Russia V Spain football semi-final. Quite a pleasant evening.

Morning at the anchorage

The day after tomorrow (Saturday) Tony is coming out to sail with us for a week. We’ve been trying to plan where to pick him up as all marinas in and around Split will all be crammed over the weekend with charter boat changeovers and we’ll have no chance of finding a place. The plan so far is to head over to a nearby island tomorrow night to anchor and then motor in on Saturday morning to a spot near the airport, anchor and pick him up in the tender.

This morning whilst on Vis went for a bike ride up and down some very steep hills to a bay around the coast. It was absolutely sweltering, so we were both sweaty and very hot on the way, when we got there and on the way back – good exercise however.

At the beach we were surprised to see a couple of real fat slags and a chap with unfeasibly large testicles. There was also a Croatian guy making innuendos about everything called Finbarski Suanderski. I’m sure there must have been a Mr Mellie there as well.   

Arrived yesterday on the island of Vis for a welcome day in port. We’ve been out at anchor for the 7 days now so need to refill the water tanks and visit a supermarket to stock up a few items.

Vis is meant to be one of the nicest Croatian islands so we were looking forward to visiting. We even managed a reasonable amount of sailing to get here – not that it was far. We travelled about 20 miles from last night’s anchorage.

There has been a great big high pressure system over us for the past week, which has meant some pretty fantastic sun and temperatures (sea temperature was 30.5 degrees C  today) but little wind. The huge mountainous hillsides of the Croatian mainland however create a westerly seabreeze which starts to blow around mid-day until around 6 in the evening. For the past few days this has given us a gentle 10 knots in the open but up to 20 knots when funnelled though the large channels between islands. At night it is generally absolutely still, which is a bit close for sleeping but great for nice calm safe anchorages.

Hopefully the system will remain and continue with this pattern, as anything else will just be worse.

We arrived at Vis town quay quite early as we wanted to make sure we would get a place. Quite often if you choose the wrong place to visit on the wrong day you’ll find it packed out with a couple of flotillas taking up all the space. We moored up, washed the boat, filled the tanks and had a mooch about the town. After around 5pm, a Sunsail flotilla of about 20 boats came in and although we shouldn’t comment, it was very amusing watching the sheer unpreparedness of most of the boats coming in to moor. It was amazing to see boats with usually 6 or 8 people on board come in to moor with no lines set up and generally with very little instruction about what each one of them should do. Most of the time the skipper would just reverse up to the quay and there would be a frenzy of lines thrown in the water and at the poor marinaro whilst people fended off other boats by hand before eventually some lines would be secured and things would calm down.

At one point there was an amazing amount of surge in the harbour as a large passenger ferry came in and rotated around. Boats were bashing around all over the place at the waves struck the quay wall and the rocking harmonics amplified and rippled down the quay. We were quite worried for a while, but it passed after a few minutes and we were fine.

For the evening meal we walked over to Kutz around the bay and had a couple of cocktails and went to a recommended fish restaurant where Jacqui had some excellent squid and I had probably the worse approximation of a steak I’d ever tasted. It was like a thin slab of stewed corned beef in both taste and consistency. Not to be recommended by me! 

One great thing we’ve found so far about cruising in Croatia is that generally you’re never more than a couple of hours away from the next island or nice anchorage. It makes it very easy to get up, do a few jobs and a bit of work then cruise along to the next night’s stop.

All this may change however in July and August when the place becomes charter boat hell and full of Italians on holiday. I’m sure it’ll be very, very busy.

We had a great 30 mile sail today in fantastic steady 15 knot winds. Full sail, 6.5knts, tacking along the coast to our destination. Currently in a lovely sheltered anchorage called Uvala Luka on the end of the Peljesac peninsular. So far no-ones come to collect any money! So despite what the pilot book said we may get away with a free night! Wow.

Well, its finally starting to wear us down – the way we seem to be charged huge amounts for every little thing over here. Yesterday we anchored off a small town called Korcula on Korcula island so we could zoom in and have a look around. The pilot book said it was a pretty little fortified town a bit like a miniature Dubrovnik.

No sooner had we dropped anchor and settled down, there came the buzzing of an outboard with an official asking us to pay harbour dues. Graciously, he informed us that the price for anchoring was only half the price of a marina berth! Wow, thanks a lot! Usually anchoring is a freebie as you don’t get many amenities – maybe a bit of shelter from the wind and swell – that’s all. So, we had to cough up £15 for the privilege of dropping the anchor in a crowded bay about ½ a mile from the town!

Next came 2 strange Croatian men who swam out to our boat and hung around the stern chatting whilst clinging on to our dingy. Obviously I confronted them and asked them what they were doing, but they didn’t reply and after a while (when I started getting a bit agitated) they buggered off to the next boat. I made a large amount of noise with the fog horn to warn the boat, and they eventually swam off back to shore. Needless to say we made sure everything was inside, locked up and well secured last night.

Oh yes, today we where charged the equivalent of £4.50 for two nectarines, two apples and a lettuce from an incredibly bearded woman on a market store. Jax paid before we realised how much it way – real tourist prices!!

So…the Croatian lesson today is… anchor overnight in remote bays away from towns then head in to the town anchorage early in the morning, nip in by tender to look around before leaving in the afternoon so as to avoid fees. Also, don’t be afraid to refuse to pay for food if you’re getting ripped off – and remember, “Nothing is free in Croatia”.

That’s it, rant over, sorry.

Yesterday afternoon when we’d returned to the boat and were lazing around for a while (actually Adrian was nursing his cold and being very sniffy) a large (25m) stink-ship (modern jazzy motor yacht) came and anchored 100m away from us. This is always a bad sign as these things are invariably full of partying non-boaties who rock up, throw the anchor down willy nilly, make loads of racket, whizz around in dingies and possibly jet skis and generally make a nuisance of themselves before (if you’re lucky) buggering off back to the nearest marina at top speed come evening.

This boat was no exception, with a number of loud Croatians aboard that insisted on shouting to eachother and their kids as they swam and played noisily around the boat. Being the boring yachties we are, we were bemoaning the sudden lack of peace and quiet in this beautiful anchorage when around the corner steams a huge (100ft long) police boat which precedes to motor over and forcibly tie up alongside the previously loud cruiser. Now, call me cautious, but a 100 tonne big metal boat relying on the unspecified anchor and anchoring technique of the plastic motor yacht seemed a bit optimistic – but anyway, it did and seemed ok. 

This was all quite interesting for us watching and would have been even more pleasant if we hadn’t been downwind of the mucky smelly diesel fumes being pumped out of the police boat.

The police boarded the motor yacht and after 20 minutes departed - we think with a member of the crew. Even better was that once the police boat had disappeared the motor yacht buggered off as well. An excellent result! 

We still don’t know why they were boarded and it was most likely to be speeding or some other paperwork infringement, but we like to think it was the Croatian authorities simply coming down hard on people in anchorages being unsociable and making too much noise!

Now we start with the strange Croatian place names… Mljet is a thin strip of an island around 20 miles long about 30 miles north west of Dubrovnik. We sailed here on Friday up the Mljetski Kanal which is basically the sea between the mainland and the island. Typically, this stretch of sea funnelled the winds down its high sides so whatever wind there was came right on our nose all the way.

The northern end of the island is a large national park with a number of large inlets and anchorages. We headed to a place called Polace – a recommended anchorage next to a small village so we could anchor, get in the tender and head over to a bar to watch Croatia in the football quarter final. The anchorage is really beautiful and despite a constant sea breeze of 15-20 knots outside, is calm and sheltered.

Luka Polace anchorage - Vagari is bottom left

The football was tedious with 89 minutes of uninspired effort followed by two goals and then extra time and penalties. We found a quiet bar to watch it amongst a few Croatians. Disappointingly Croatia underperformed and our hosts were out of the cup – shame for them as the country was really enjoying the competition and everyone was quite football crazy.

I’ve had a cold developing over the past couple of days so yesterday we took some gentle exercise and took the bikes ashore and cycled into the national park and around a couple of the picturesque lakes for a few hours. It is currently very calm weather and around 25-28 degrees, which is lovely - especially when we read aout the gales currently hitting the UK.

We arrived back in Croatia two days ago to quite strong winds and a choppy sea. Vagari was fine, so we started victualling with freshies from the local market in Dubrovnik and making preparations to head off and start exploring Croatia’s numerous bays and islands. Mooring has been expensive. 13 nights in Dubrovnik marina has cost about €700.

Leaving Dubrovnik

There are over 1400 islands along the Croatian coast, so we didn’t plan to move very far initially – just 10 miles north to Lopud where we have found a nice anchorage with only a few other boats.

Otuk Lopud

Not the smoothest anchorage, but it’s a lovely bright and warm morning. We have the tender up and are going ashore for a little explore soon before heading off later. Croatia play Turkey tonight in the Euro cup, so it’ll be quite a tense match so I think we’ll try to head somewhere with a couple of bars.     

We arrived back in the UK last Tuesday for a flying 6 day visit so we could go to Jules and Carly’s wedding near Cheltenham. Whilst in Brighton we managed to catch up with most of our friends and even watched the traditional festival of England getting trashed by the Kiwis in Rugby.

We also met with Adrian’s sister Sandra on the Saturday night before the wedding and the six of us went for a very pleasant pub meal with Micky and Trish. 

The wedding was one of those good ones – the weather held off and was fine, there were loads of people to catch up with, everyone was nice and relaxed, the wedding guests were well catered for, the venue was fantastic and the bride and groom were having a great time.

(more photos)

Thanks to Jules and Carly and glad we could make it. Good luck when you get back to China.

Currently sailing away from Italy across the Adriatic sea to Croatia. We feel a bit sad to be leaving the country we've sailied around for the past year - actually since Sardinia last easter.

It also feels a bit strange sailing across a sea to an unfamiliar country - but we're both looking forward to the (hopefully) abundant cruising grounds and hundreds of pituresque islands along the Dalmatian coast.

Our last day in Brindisi was reasonably quiet - I went for a run in the morning along the north breakwater - Jax's ankle and knee still not being up to running. The breakwater is so long that it took me about 15 minutes to reach the end (at my pace that puts it just over two and a half miles long) by far the longest harbour wall I've seen.

After breakfast (toast and cereal) we saddled up and went for a ride into town. A quick look around the shops and some fresh orange juice and coffee for jax was the order of the day. We then ambled back via a supermarket where Jax stacked up the rucksack I was carrying with cans of Aranciata Amara orange drink she's been searching for everywhere.

Strangely enough we ran into Kathie and Roger (from Amazon) who were doing some similar sightseeing. A quick trip up the large sailors memorial (which looks like a war memorial) to get a panoramic view of the city, the ports, the marinas and the airport.

more photos

We left the marina at 1630 and expect to sail or motor overnight before arriving in Croatia between 10 and 12 tomorrow morning.