Gotta Get out of Kremik

After scratching ourselves all day we were going a bit stir-crazy. Don’t get me wrong, Kremik is about the nicest marina we’ve stayed in. It’s completely sheltered, the washrooms are clean and modern, there’s a store, restaurant, boat-chandlery but it drives us crazy to be there. Perhaps it’s because we’ve stayed there more than anywhere else. I really suspect it’s because of the proximity of Tara and our inability to be on our own boat. We had expected our boat to be ready when we arrived. Reality is that it will take about two months …. Live and learn!



At least we have Gemini – the Lagoon 38 Catamaran. Unfortunately, Gemini has been a bit of an ongoing maintenance headache. While we’ve put lots of hours on the engines – more than 40 hours so far – and none of that was to charge the fridge or batteries. The biggest issue was the completely worn-out belt that powers the raw-water pump. Without cooling, the engine blows up. I had to tighten the belt about every 2 days in order to get water flow. The belt had disintegrated to the point where I was afraid to tighten it up further. We needed a new one – and when you have two engines, you should have two! We also lost a shackle on the jib tack, the port head has developed a leak and we ran out of cooking gas, the insurance for the boat had expired, and our “vinjeta” the permit that allows us to be in Croatia had expired. All good reasons to return to Kremik but we wanted it to be a pit stop … but the way Croatia works it looked like it was trending towards a 2-3 day exercise to source a belt or two and find a propane bottle.


I was grumbling but Marina came to the rescue and decided the squeaky wheel gets some grease. So we basically parked our butts inside the Charter office until they did what we wanted to make us go away. Marina asked me “Do you think we’re becoming ‘Groaners’?” – you know, whenever someone sees you coming they groan “oh it’s them again….” And I believe we are …. But we got what we needed and we got outta dodge.

Finally in the afternoon we made our way into Primosten … even though it’s a 45 minute walk from Kremik it’s far enough mentally away to make it seem like we’re back on holidays. I was able to extend our vinjeta (a quaint way to collect a few $$ a day from every foreigner on every boat – it looks a lot like a head-tax to me) at the harbour office. We anchored overnight and decided to leave the next day for the south.