A port in the storm

---

The new crew came aboard on Saturday and, after provisioning, we set sail on Sunday, heading south to Zut and the southern Kornati Island of Smokvica Vela, to eat at a restaurant from the Gourmet Sailing Guide.

From there we headed north to sail through the desolate archipelago and spend the night on a mooring buoy at Mir in the national park. North of the Kornati islands is the Zadar archipelago which is more lush with many trees. We spent the night at a new marina in Veli Rat (which means large cape) then sailed a brisk beam reach to Pag, home of Paski Sir, tasty goat's cheese, and the famous Pag lace. From Pag we travelled north to the ACI marina in Rab where we now sit in a warm, dry pizza parlour waiting for our veggie pizza. Torrential rain is pouring from the heavens accompanied by heavy doses of thunder and lightening.

The cooler temperatures are welcome after the humid heat of the past few days, or at least they make a change. We had planned to spend today in Rab anyway, this being our first visit, however we might have to extend that stay until this storm cell, with predicted gusts of wind too high to be any fun outside the harbour, moves on.

On quiet evenings we've been busy compiling cribbage rules for six players and, now that we've ironed out the snags to make the rules as fair as we can, are ready to hold a marathon tournament -- likely when we tire of running from church to cafe to church to ice-cream parlour as the deluge momentarily eases.

---