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Published: April 11th 2008
Hello from our new home, our yacht ‘Paulina’
Well it is now Friday the 11th of April and I haven’t put up a blog since the 4th. Simple reason is we have been out in the boonies and the internet is still thought of in the same vein as putting man on mars!!.
So, since we last posted….. that was the morning after we left Dubrovnik and caught our bus from Dubrovnik to Sukosan, about 400 klms to the north where we picked up our boat. The bus was a reasonably old style coach, quite comfortable and another travel experience for the girls. As we suspected, the road wound it’s way along the coast for almost all of the way and the coastal scenery, as you would expect, is pretty spectacular.
There were a lot of road works on the way and traffic jams a plenty. Due to the delays, the drivers did not want to make the regular two hour stops we were told would be made and it was, in most cases, simply drop off and pick up passengers as quickly as possible. We managed to jump off at Split and grab a quick snack to
take back on the bus and it was a bit of a case of a hurry up merry go round: the bus co-driver was giving me the big hurry up and I was giving the girl in the snack bar the big hurry up and poor old Layni was having conniptions, fearing her poor old Dad was going to be left behind at the snack bar. I jumped back on the bus, basically as the bus was pulling away and tucked into our ham and cheese rolls and peach ice teas - well worth the hassle!.
We got dropped off at the front of the marina around 7.15pm, about 8 hours after our departure. The Yacht Charter Company had very kindly allowed us to stay on board the night before our charter and not only did it save us the hassle of trying to find somewhere to stay, it saved us a couple of hundred on accommodation. The marina where the yacht is berthed is the biggest in Croatia and it was about a kilometre walk around to the boat, dragging our bags behind us. I guess the anticipation of seeing the boat reduced the angst of the long
haul and we climbed on board our new home for the next 5 weeks.
Having done so much research on the Hanse Yachts, I more or less thought I knew the boat inside and out but being on board and actually being able to absorb all the features of the yacht was fantastic. She is 40’ long and has three cabins, two heads (dunnies in sail speak) with decent little vanities, a shower cubicle in one of the heads, a good galley (kitchen) and a well laid out saloon. The cockpit is very spacious and she is the absolute perfect size boat for a family of four on an extended charter. We were very happy with our choice. We had a look over a Hanse 430 which is also in charter with the same company and it is amazing what an extra three feet means in a boat. The 430 seemed a lot bigger, especially as far as the outside of the boat was concerned. I had been communicating with a lot of different owners for some time with regards to the difference between the two boats and the general consensus was that the 40, whilst a bit smaller
was by far, the better and easier boat to sail and handle, something we were to appreciate very much as our trip progressed.
We had dinner at the marina that night and the next morning did our boat briefing and then headed into town to get some more medical supplies for poor old Layni as her mouth was not improving. We also needed to get some provisions as we had chosen to head out into the outer islands where shops and supplies were to be few and far between. We managed to stock up pretty well and found a pharmacy and got some (hopefully) magic potions for Layni.
The charter company were very helpful and drove us into and back from town with our supplies and really could not do enough for us. We loaded up the boat, including a bottle of Croatian wine that we were assured was very good, one to celebrate the big five o with. Having never tried Croatian wine before, I took the option of paying a quite a bit, hoping that price equalled quality.
We didn’t end up making way until about 2.45pm and headed out of the marina, deciding to
head west to isolation rather than south to civilisation. The reason we chose this course was from what we had been advised through charter recommendations, travel research and the winds were in our favour. As Debs and the girls had not sailed for quite some time, we decided to go slowly, slowly and just sailed under the headsail for the first afternoon. The boat is truly a dream to sail, so easy with the self tacking headsail and she responds so quickly and effortlessly. We had a beautiful afternoon sail before we anchored up at a bay called Sutomiscica. Now I doubt if any of these names are going to mean anything at all but if I put them in the blog at least I will have some record of where we have been.
We had a very good anchorage and had a couple of beers in the cockpit watching the sun going down and illuminating the vast range of snow capped mountains off to the east. We had been hankering for a home cooked meal and I made excellent use of our galley on the first night, cooking up a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup. After
not having any real veg for quite some time, it tasted fantastic. We bunkered down for our first night out, feeling very chuffed with ourselves.
The next day we got up to a brilliant sunny morning and as we have to run the engines for at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon to keep our batteries topped up, we motored north to a beautiful little island and found a nice calm bay where we anchored up for brekkie. We had a bit of relax and then headed off for a bit more sailing. We put the main up for the first time and found even more qualities in the boat as far as her speed and ease of sailing were concerned. Debs and the girls were finding their sea legs incredibly quickly and we sailed for some hours just taking in the sights and the sensations.
We had a bit of a hassle finding a suitable berth for the night, trying one anchorage but deciding against it after we got the weather forecast. We ended up berthing next to a sea wall at a little village called Komoseva on the island of
Iz. Komoseva doesn’t have much as far as facilities is concerned but it does have a little shop, a bit like a little corner store back home, and the little shop does have hot fresh bread delivered about 7.20am which alone was worth the stay. The wind really started to blow about 4.00am and we added more lines as the sun came up and the morning ferry horns woke us from our slumber.
We decided it was going to be too rough to try and leave the harbour and a day wandering the island was in order. A lot of the islands seem to have little concrete paths that join the villages along the shore line and it makes getting around very easy indeed.
Hot porridge was cooked for brekkie and we had managed to find some brown sugar and thick cream to top it off. Ahh the simple pleasures of life!!. You very soon realise that the boat and all that affects it becomes a big part of your world and daily life as we know it. The wind, the direction it is coming from, the strength of it, water supplies, battery supplies, gas supplies, food supplies
all become very important factors to consider. Daily weather reports are listened to intently as so much hinges on what is going to happen in weather world for the next 24 hours.
One incredibly big positive is that being on board also forges huge bonds between the four of us. We spend 24 hours a day together and most, if not all of that time is spent as an incredibly tight knit group, doing things that we somehow don’t seem to have the time to do back home. Hours are spent playing gin rummy together and I think it brings back childhood memories of days before television and electrical entertainment. We go for walks together when we can, exploring and talking about the things we discover and might discover. For me, these are times that are irreplaceable and are to be treasured.
Well, the morning of the 8th of April dawned and Debsy and I were up to watch the sun come up on the morning of my 50th birthday!!! And a big happy birthday to Megan Louez as well xx.
My dream of what I had wanted to do on my birthday had come true, to
be on a boat with my family, cruising in some far off place. Nikki and I went off to the shop and for the first time in Nikki’s life she experienced the smell and touch of hot bread straight from the bakers’ oven. We tucked into another big bowl of hot porridge and cream and fresh bread and jam. What a birthday brekkie. Cards and gifts were opened and it was an incredibly special start to the day.
We decided to head off that morning as there was going to be a small window in the weather so we left our mooring and headed off. We were heading further west toward the island of Dugi Otok and the Kornati Island Group and had intended on sailing to a village called Sali where we believed a fresh fish market would afford us an opportunity of buying a bucket load of fresh scampi to feast on for my birthday.
Our passage across to Sali was the hardest sail we had experienced on the trip with winds gusting to about 35knots from the south. We sailed with just the headsail up and were making very good boat speed, even though most
of the time we were to windward. The boat is an incredibly kindly sea boat and she tends to slice through the water rather than pound on the chop and overall it was quite a comfortable trip, albeit a bit cold.
Debs and the girls are handling the conditions brilliantly and with a bit of help from the good old sea leg tablets, are not encountering any sea sickness or anxiousness on board. In fact, they are becoming incredibly competent and capable crew members, learning more and more about the chart plotter, paper charts and chart books that makes finding safe and suitable harbours and anchorages a whole lot easier.
Have to say the Croatia Cruising Companion, courtesy of the Newell’s and the Hurst’s has been a godsend. The book has been used constantly each day and is a ‘cruising bible’ for us. That book combined with the 777 Chart Book that was lent to us by Peter and Sharon has meant we are able to head off with absolute confidence about where we hope to stop for the night. Life would have been very different without them. Thank you guys so much.
We ended up hooking
up to another sea wall in a very small village just north of Sali. An ‘interesting berthing’ might be an apt way of describing it. We headed off and walked the coast path into Sali; not realising there was a path over the hill that cut about 20 minutes off the walk!! It didn’t matter, the walk was appreciated. Sad to say, no fresh fish markets and only one restaurant was open that night. Walked for ages to find it and when I did was told that whilst they were open, there was one dish and one dish alone on the menu - calamari. That was it!!
I didn’t particularly feel like calamari to celebrate my birthday so we decided we would rustle up dinner on board and have some pasta and the bottle of Croatian surprise I had bought at Sukosan. We went to a little shop in the village and Layni spotted an un-iced and un-filled cake that she thought was essential to any 50th birthday celebrations. So that was that and off we headed back to the boat with our essentials for the night.
The girls set about making THE best birthday cake you could
ever imagine. The cake was sliced and spread with red currant jam, with the intention of spreading thick cream over each layer, only problem was we ran out of thick cream so Nikki and Debs did a dash back over the hill to the village and bought some more cream which we tried and tried to whip into submission. For reasons unknown to the team of chefs, the cream would not thicken. Being the mistresses of invention, the girls decided the next best option would be to pour the cream over the cake slices - sheer culinary brilliance!!!. Once the layers were assembled, cream, sliced strawberries and chopped up chocolate was the topping.
Call me biased if you will, but this cake turned out to be absolutely incredible. The cream was soaked up by the sponge and it turned out to be a creamy, chocolaty, jammy, strawberry taste sensation!!!
So the birthday feast consisted of delicious pasta, a bottle of Croatian surprise that turned out to be a very nice drop indeed and topped off with the remaining birthday cake from heaven. (The rest of it had been enjoyed for afternoon tea following a very tuneful rendition of
Porridge, brown sugar and cream
The cold weather has called for the old favouritehappy birthday by the girls!!!) In all honesty, I don’t think I could have asked for a better or more memorable birthday.
We headed off the next morning quite early, intending to sail around to an area called Telascica Bay, which all the guide books say is a place not to be missed. We headed down the bottom of Dugi Otok and through a very narrow and shallow channel called Malo Proversa and headed up into the bay. The area is very remote and has little or no human habitation, except of course during the summer season when I imagine the area would be very busy with charter boats and yachts coming over from Italy which in reality is not all that far across the Adriatic. We stopped off for brekkie in a beautiful little bay, enjoying being bathed in sunshine for a change.
After brekkie we sailed off out of the bay and out into the Adriatic to do a bit of offshore sailing. We sailed down the outside of the Kornati Island group, reaching in about 14 knots of wind. Even though the wind was constant, the sea was very confused and quite joggly. After a
few hours the wind eased and as it was becoming quite uncomfortable we decided to head back inshore and try and pick up some breeze through the channels.
We eventually made it around to the ACI Marina on the Island of Piskera. ACI have quite a number of marinas throughout Croatia and are government sponsored. It costs about 4 Euro per metre per night to stay which includes electricity and water. As we were getting very low on water we decided to have a night at the marina, have a nice hot shower courtesy of the marina facilities and generally recharge the boat and ourselves. It was our first time of hooking up to lazy lines which are ropes that come out from the marina finger, to which you tie off the bow of the boat. You then run lines from the stern of your boat back to the marina finger and the boat is then secured from four points.
Due to the remoteness of the area, power is supplied by generators and is only available at certain times of the day and night. The first thing we did was fill up our water tanks and it seemed
to take forever. Even though we had been very frugal with our water use we were obviously very low. Tanks were filled and we waited patiently for 6.00pm when we were told there would be hot water available at the onshore facilities. Well I don’t know what the Croatian word for hot is but it sure does not equate to what we know it as. The simple pleasure of soaking under a steaming hot shower just did not eventuate but at least it was warm enough to give some relief.
We had dinner that night at the restaurant at the marina and feasted on scampi and calamari washed down with a new brand of Croatian beer that we have found is very much to our liking, all in front of an open fire that is used to grill the food. Out of season does not equate to discount restaurant prices but we had a brilliant night so it was worth it.
That night the wind picked right up. A wind from the south, south east is called a Sirocco and when they start they tend to strengthen over the next 24 - 48 hours. When we woke up
in the morning the wind was howling down the channel and we wanted to head out of the Kornati’s and back toward the mainland and closer islands. We needed to reprovision and also wanted to start taking in a few of the more inhabited islands and villages.
Getting out of the marina was not what you would call easy and one of the lazy lines ended up being wrapped around the prop. Well of course I did remember to pack my dry suit and dive gear so getting under the boat in 13’C water was not going to be a problem at all was it??? The best we could muster from the marina was a mask and so armed with my trusty boat knife, my denim jeans and shirt I jumped in to the gin clear water and *&^%CK was it freezing. The coldness of the water literally forced the air from my lungs and my breath hold time was down to just a few seconds. It soon became patently obvious that the rope was well and truly wrapped around the prop and try as I may to unwind it; it just was not going to budge. The knife
blade came out and after some time I was finally able to cut away the rope and free the prop. I was literally freezing and when I got out of the water, Debs and Nik wrapped me up in my towel and blanket to start to thaw me out. After time and a warm shower on board and re-dressing in my thermals I felt like I was going to feel the sensation of being warm again.
We had discussed the dilemma of running over a fisherman’s nets and fouling the prop and we had been incredibly diligent dodging the many nets and traps that dot some of the little bays we have been to. We had dreaded the scenario of having to get into the water with this temperature. Little prayers are being said that someone, namely me, does not have to go over the side again. I can still hear Debsy’s words of wisdom about her suggesting that she pack my steamer before we left.
We wanted to get away as the marina staff told us the forecast was for even stronger wind over the next 24 hours and we had had enough of marina life at
ACI Piskera. The facilities did not warrant the fees charged and the Island was so barren, there was nothing of interest to keep us there.
It turned out, we needed all the help from about 7 of the marina guys to get out of the marina with the amount of wind on the nose, the shallow water, all the lazy lines and the windage of the boat. We eventually managed to get out but I think the adrenaline rush we had experienced over the past couple of hours was at an all time high!!! We headed out through the channel into more wind and took refuge for a while in a small bay called Lavsa. There were a couple of houses and one or two restaurants which would have been brilliant to pull up to had they been opened!!
We took stock of what had happened over the past few hours and worked out if we had the time to make it back toward the mainland. Thanks to the Cruising Guide and chart book we had a number of options open to us and so we opted to head out and make the our way south into the
wind and then hope that the wind direction would hold so we could sail close reached to our intended port for the night. As time was getting on, we motored to the south of Kornati Island and we had gusts of 35 knots of true on the nose. We turned at the bottom of the island and were able to sail from there under a partly furled head sail as we still had 35 knot gusts and between 25 to 30 knots of constant.
Debs and Nikki took over the navigating and sail trimming in conditions that neither of them had ever experienced before. Whilst there is not the swell that we have at home, the wind strength and sea swell / chop did not make for the most comfortable ride but the boat is by far the most comfortable I have sailed on. Layni being the true yachtswoman that she is, stayed in the forward cabin and slept away peacefully, completely oblivious to the sea conditions we were sailing through. She had been in the same cabin earlier in the day as well; missing all the excitement while she watched a DVD!!!
We got to our first
Island option but the temptation of being so close to more facilities won out and we decided to sail on to the Island of Zlarin. We had been sailing for some hours and the sight of a nice big sea wall and a number of other yachts safely tucked up was very welcomed. Our guide books told us that one side of the sea wall was used by a car ferry and the other was able to be used 24/7.
Of course, Murphy’s law came into being and we tied up, all nice and tight on the western side and no sooner had we done so than the car ferry arrived and the ship’s master telling us in no uncertain terms we had too move. So back around to the other side of the sea wall and we tied up near a couple of other yachts crewed by a group of young guys from the Czech Republic who were very kind in helping us secure our lines and avoid the lazy lines that represented such a terrifying image of fouled props and freezing water!! Trying to very quickly remember the little Czech that I learned in Prague was high
on the agenda as we appreciated the help these guys gave us. I think the site of a very attractive Nikola Paris might have had something to do with the enthusiasm shown.
We had high expectations that our berth, including electricity and water was F.O.C courtesy of the local council as a means of attracting boat loads of free spending tourists so we thought we would splurge out and had dinner that night in a restaurant in the village. After all that had happened that day, a warm bed was a delicious option and one that was taken with fervour by all on board; no gin rummy tonight.
Debs woke quite early to look out over the stern and see the bow of another quite large ferry boat that used this side of the sea wall. At the same time the fee collector arrived to dash our hopes of a free berth and swiftly removed nearly 300 Kuna (about $75) from the travel kitty. As they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The good news is that Layni’s mouth is almost healed and she has been incredibly strong throughout the whole ordeal. Her mouth had
ulcers everywhere and her molars have been giving her incredible grief but she has struggled on, in a fashion not usually presented by our baby girl, and has not let the problem have any undue ill affect on our trip thus far. I think we all appreciate that it could have been a whole lot different!!!
We spent the morning walking around the village and were about to leave when the Sibenik Search and Rescue Boat, a.k.a harbourmaster vessel pulled alongside and requested our ships papers, crew list, licences and passports. All was in order and the Captain of the ship filed a report and had a bit of a chat about life in Australia with Mark Viduca from the Socceroos being placed on the high importance list.
We headed off from the island and headed over to the mainland with the intention of making it up the river from Sibenik to Skradin and the Krka Waterfalls and National Park. We sailed across to the mainland and then motored up the river for quite a few miles before we berthed in this incredibly beautiful little village called Skradin and another ACI Marina. We berthed in the marina and
have had a bit of a wonder around the village, checking out the situation for the boat cruises up to the waterfall and stocking up on a few supplies. The marina has wonderful hot showers, something of a luxury on this part of the trip as well as having a wireless hot spot so finally having found some internet connection we will post this blog and catch up on some emails and news from home. Thank you for all the birthday wishes and kind thoughts on our trip and blogs. We are having an incredible adventure and each day is bringing great experiences and new challenges, touch wood, all controllable at this point in time, that is everything except the weather. Blog again when we can.
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Jane Cody
non-member comment
Croatia Cruising Companion
Love the blog and delighted you like our guide. If you have time to send us any updates for the related blog www.croatiacruisingcompanion.blogspot.com, all information gratefully received. If you're passing past Kastela, between Split and Trogir, and have time for a coffee or beer please email - just great to read about people enjoying cruising Croatia and your guest dog looks very much like ours!