Blogs from Dalmatia, Croatia, Europe

Dear All Greetings from Split! This is another amazing Croatian city, though really quite different to Dubrovnik. Being Croatia's second largest city at 265,000 people, it is a large and busy urban area with sprawling suburbs filled with communist-era residential tower blocks and hulking great port and industrial areas. Dubrovnik, on the other hand, was slow-paced and deeply charming, a quaint and seriously splendid little city with a comparatively diminutive 40,000 residents. Whilst different, Split also packed a punch (almost) as good as Dubrovnik to me, most notably with its unbelievable Diocletian's Palace right in the heart of town, more on that below. I must admit, I was a little disappointed with the way I arrived there though. I had originally planned a fast ferry ride from Dubrovnik to spend three hours on the island of ... read more

I arrived in Zadar around 9:30am, and Hayden was waiting for my arrival. He's a traveler from New Zealand that I've been communicating with- we decided we'd team up to explore for a few days: I'm sharing my home exchange apartment in Vir and he's renting out a car for us. We plugged in the directions to the apartment, and off we went. We stopped at a grocery store along the way to pick up a few basics, and then continued on our way to the apartment. Vir is an island connected by a bridge to the mainland, with a cute beach town vibe. Our apartment is just 100 metres or so to the water. It has a lovely covered porch, and little yard with fig trees. We dropped off our things, unpacked groceries, and then ... read more

We said our goodbyes to our sailing companions after disembarking in the morning and made our way to Split Airport for our flight to Rome. Little did I know that I would be channelling John McEnroe again. “You can’t be serious? ”Presented our flight details at check-in only to be told that the Vueling flight had departed at 8.40am. All our information in black and white had 3.45pm. The airline official checked our information, saw that we were on the flight manifest, everything was correct except … a big except … the departure time. We had received no email, no sms, no phone call, no smoke signals, that the flight time had changed … changed big time! We had to purchase tickets again … this time with Croatian Airlines leaving at 12.05pm … 854 Euros please ... read more

A leisurely stroll with Jane for an early morning swim after a late night. The stroll took us past some beautiful vistas. Breaking away from the dock we hoisted sail promptly and headed for the open sea. It took three long tacks before we were through the heads and away. The breeze allowed for a speed of 6-7 knots before increasing to 9. It was a very comfortable cruise to our destination, Milna, on the island of Brac. Not a cloud in the sky, the sea as blue as blue and the sun shining a comfortable heat. I sat under the mainsail boom for the total sail, joined by Jane a half hour into the sail. Not a hint of seasickness today. There were many yachts about, over 2 dozen of various sizes. Ours is one ... read more

The wind did not let up. The Vis bay became packed with yachts seeking safe anchorage. While were away from the yacht the Vis port manager whizzed around on his runabout ordering everyone to vacate their moorings and find another anchorage position on the opposite side of the bay as a fleet of over 50 “Sail Croatia” yachts had booked the mooring area plus other positions. Feedback told me that Peter and the other Skippers were not happy chappies. I had walked back from the town only to find no “Ocean House” and numerous yachts roped together where my yacht had been. I assumed we had been moved … Peter wouldn’t have pulled stumps and left me behind … would he? Jane met me as I was returning to town and to the other side of ... read more