The First Days on Gemini

We’re quickly getting over our disappointment of our boat not being ready. The Lagoon 3800 Catamaran we’re on is serving as an excellent proxy. We’re learning of the plus/minuses of catamaran living. The big plus is the brightness of the main cabin and its accessibility (e.g., you don’t need to descend into a cave). The downside is that the motion is a little different – more rolling than I had expected, though no heeling, and she’s not as close winded as a monohull. The upside is in manoeuvring with its twin engines – it handles just like a big twin-screw powerboat with lots of windage. Guess what – when driving it you feel just like you’re driving a powerboat only S---L---O---W. Not necessarily ideal from a sailor’s perspective.

Not meaning to write a boat comparison article … the best news is that we’re out of Marina Kremik. While the people there are great and we enjoyed touring around by car spending madly to get Tara outfitted and ready to go, it was most definitely time to get moving. We knew it was time to get going when Marina and the kids were swimming off the dock and a “Kramer*” floated by.

When I went to pick up the boat there was the mandatory paperwork. Croatia is still shrugging off its bureaucratic roots – so there’s a plethora of paperwork for everything you do – and there is a fee associated with everything. We got that all sorted and went to move the boat and an engine alarm went off, the water sensor was defective so another couple of hours wait. Eventually “Gemini” showed up and we had a rushed loading job and moved about 1000 kgs of gear and food off Tara and onto the loaner boat. We filled her up with water and headed out. Everybody was relieved to get away …. Now where do we go? The kids just wanted to stop the engines and go swimming … so that’s what we did. We put the sails up and tested them out, and then headed into Primosten (a 3 minute cab ride away from Kremik and where we had gone 4 of the previous 5 days). Anyway we anchored in Primosten and enjoyed dinner and a beautiful sunset. We were no longer land lubbers and actually started our “holidays” – holidays because until we’re on Tara, we’re not really on our trip yet.

*(Kramer .. as in Cosmo Kramer fame from the show “Seinfeld” was our code word for Poop in the water – you might remember the episode where Cosmo was watching the ‘Jerry Show’ and needed to go to the washroom … couldn’t find one … was turned away several times … and then couldn’t go. Well the name stuck! So … when there is a “Kramer in the water” you don’t swim!)