We powered for a little while and then started sailing when we could. Again the silence from the MAX Prop was awesome. For those who haven’t spent much time on a larger sailboat, when you’re sailing the propeller spins, rotating the propeller shaft. This causes noise (from the shaft spinning) and vibration – enough to drive one stark-raving mad. The best feature of the MAX Prop is that when it feathers, the prop-shaft doesn’t spin – and all is quiet.
Once we past Trogir we needed to power. Our plan was to get to Split and pickup the dinghy and motor, then head out to the islands of Brac or Hvar (pronounced Bratch and Huh-var). We got to Split, docked at the Ina (fuel depot) and poured a few hundred dollars of new fuel (to replace the other new fuel we threw away two days earlier). I hopped off, Marina and the kids took the boat out to anchor.
The Marina store we went to in Split is right on the water. I walked in and they had the Dinghy and Motor ready for us. They asked where I’d like to take it, I said out to the street and then I’d throw it in the water -- I guess it’s not that often that people bring their boat to a store because it took a minute or two to explain what I wanted to do.
So here I am on the sidewalk by the quay unpacking and blowing up an inflatable dinghy and prepping a motor (unpacking it, putting gas and oil into it) with all these tourists walking around looking at us like we’re crazy. After I sorted out paying plus the very difficult task of figuring out how to get the 23% VAT back, we threw the dinghy in the water and I tried to start the engine. No go. Hmmm … having had my fill of engine trouble recently I fished out the manual from by backpack, and looked up where the fuel switch was, threw it over to the internal tank and brrmmmm – away we went. I arrived back at the boat with the dinghy and a few other assorted goodies (has any boater ever been able to visit a marine store with a 30% discount and not remembered a few things they need?!?!?).
So we shipped the dinghy engine onto its bracket, lit up the diesel engine on Tara, left Split, put up the sails and started sailing to Brac or Hvar. I had a conference call with my boss Dave Weiss at 6:30 so we chose Milna and were settled at anchor at 5:30. Marina was starving so she went to dinner with the Kids and I’d follow after my call. At 6:24pm the police dropped by and told me I needed to move the boat or pay a big fine, so I called the family at the Restaurant and Ross came back in the dinghy to help. I had already lifted the anchor, we moved 100’ to the left, dropped anchor and at 6:32 I joined the call. I would have made it at 6:30 if I hadn’t forgotten that I had plugged my earphones into the computer and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t hearing the call on Skype – PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair). After talking to Dave for a half hour I felt great (I love work … what can I say …. I sure feel sorry for all those who don’t love what they do) we went out for dinner. They were cutting up a 45Kilo Tuna – what a magnificent animal. We saw lots of feral cats hovering too for some tuna cast-offs.
While we were eating we were approached by a guy who asked if we were from Vancouver. There was another Beneteau 50 on the way into Milna (they were sailing, we were motoring) and we said yes. Turns out it was a group of families from West Vancouver – Mark Holden with his wife and daughter and Barry & Lynn with two kids, and Eric with his daughter. Turns out Mark’s family lives on Palmerston Avenue, where Marina grew up, and their kids went to Irwin Park and WV High School – where Ross and soon Jessie will be attending next year. What a small world. It was great to catch up with fellow Canadians, and while we love it in Croatia, there truly is no place like home.
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