After a very peaceful night we then went to the old city of Trogir. Trogir has been around for hundreds of years and is on an island separated from the mainland by a 20 foot wide canal. We anchored in some very cloudy water across from a ship-building factory in a canal that was frequented by ferries, big RIBs at 15 knots … basically lots of traffic. We piled into our little dinghy and went into town. We decided to be tourists and thoroughly enjoyed touring a church that was built in the 13th century, walking up looking out from the bell tower. You get a sense of how much bigger we are physically than people 500 years ago. I’d guess that at 6’2” I’d be a giant back then as most of the doorways I need to duck for and some of the passages my shoulders need to be turned sideways for.
Once we fed and watered ourselves, we made it back to Gemini and headed back to the Islands. We chose Solta and into a very crowded anchorage. We snuck in between a 40’ Beneteau and a 70 foot powerboat. We had about a boatlength on each side … and after a night where the wind changed direction several times, we remained a boatlength away from each of our neighbours. Marina is very good at making sure our anchor is stuck!
From Solta we decided to go to the island of Hvar and check out an anchorage our friend Pavle told us about. We went into the city of Hvar and got some diesel fuel. Once again I was amazed at the process of getting fuel – very labour intensive and exceedingly slow. It took us more than an hour to get 100 litres of diesel. In Coal Harbour sometimes people take their sweet-time to fuel up their boats, check water, shop, go to the washroom …. But Croatians have taken it to a new level.
After Hvar we tucked into SC Klement and anchored in a gap between islands. The current ran quite strong and curiously, the boat instead of pulling on the anchor was floating over top of it. In spite of the current and wind growing in strength, we stayed directly over our anchor and didn’t move more than 10 feet in any direction overnight. We found this very weird and totally incomprehensible why this would have happened. Anyway, we were up for the 7:45 forecast and the Bora was coming. 30-55 knot gusts from the NE, 22-28 knots NW wind expected. We’re still a bit shy about the Cat so we decided to get going right away and get to a safe moorage at Milna on the Island of Brac. It turns out we had a good idea early because while we arrived to a nearly empty harbour at 9:30, by 4pm it was chock-a-block full. The wind was now about 20 knots and it was high entertainment watching the 1-week-a-year charterers try to bring their 40-50 foot boats into a mooring in breeze. All day the charter floatilla arrived until the boats were several rows deep on the pier. There was a big party on Friday night and we now understand what the pilot books mean by “beware on Friday night this harbour is a destination for the Floatilla”. The Floatilla boats are beautiful old-design sailing/power yachts that are about 100-150 feet in length. They’re covered with immaculately maintained wood and it looks like a great way to spend a week – on a mini-cruise ship with probably 10 other cabins …. Going from Island to Island without a care in the world other than which restaurant I want to eat in or whether I should have the croissant with the chocolate or marmalade filling this morning.
Marina did notice a couple of casualties from the night before. One young French girl had lost her boat – it appeared that she was still a bit under the influence and that she indeed did not make it back to her boat before it left. We sure hope sure she could find a way to meet them later that day …. It surprised me a bit as I haven’t yet met a Croatian where a schedule was much more than a loose guideline.
In Milna we stayed at the ACI Marina and it cost another $180 per night. When we checked out I found that Cats are charged a 70% premium over monohulls. Yikes. Our 38 foot Cat is 21 feet wide, but our 50 foot Beneteau is 15 feet wide … not sure than 30% wider is worth a 70% premium …. Grrr.
We left Milna and the Bora was blowing in the mid-20’s. We tucked in behind the Island of Brac and went to an anchorage called Blaca – where there was a hike to an Hermitage (like a refuge for monks we think). It was quite a hike up the hill …
probably a few kilometers at least. Once we got there we found the museum was closed for renovations (might have been good to know before we left). What goes up must come down and we made our way down the trail. Once we got to the bay we discovered a couple of young cats that befriended Jessie. It made us miss our cats Izzie and Leroy that we gave away before we came on our trip. It was a nice little harbour but for some reason the kids didn’t like it too much so we headed back to Lucice and grabbed a mooring ball (150HRK) and spent the night. We were very excited because we saw a yacht with a Canadian flag onboard … but alas, it was a 16 and 17 year old brother and sister from Toronto that were visiting their Czech uncle. They were excited to see other Canadians but we didn’t spend too much time there since the kids ages didn’t mesh well.
Overnight the Bora hit hard – probably 20-30knots and we were happy for a mooring ball instead of an anchor. It also got cool, so Ross put a shirt on …. Wow, there is a first for everything. The other challenge with the heavy winds is that they stir up the water and mix the cold water with the warm water -- meaning that our swimming is being affected negatively. Ross didn’t even swim yesterday and for a kid who spends all summer in Parker Island water (e.g., 55-60 degrees) that's saying something.
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