On the Move... sort of

On the Move – Sort Of



When Ross and I dropped the hook in Milna before my concall, Ross wrote me a note saying the anchor dragged and never really “bit” before I had to run off to my call. It looked OK to me and Marina (keeper of all knowledge relative to anchoring) said we’d be fine unless the wind blew 20 knots. Both of us slept with ‘one ear open’ and it wasn’t until about 6 am that we heard any wind at all. The grocery store opened at 6:30 so I was sent to get some food and Marina stayed with the boat to make sure that we didn’t drag anywhere.


We bugged out at around 7:15 and headed to Hvar. Going through a narrow stretch between Solta and Brac the weather started looking U-G-L-Y. Very black clouds, rain, and the thing that un-nerves me the most …. Lightning. We braved it for about a mile or two but after the 4th or 5th lightning strike we headed back and caught a mooring ball for an hour or so in the harbour of Lucice. We had breakfast, a cup of tea, rolled a lot in the waves, then came up and saw the weather had largely cleared and we struck out on our way again – tail only slightly between our legs. We were able to sail into the city of Hvar, but then the wind pooped out and we powered for a couple of hours into the city of Korčula on the island of … you guessed it …. Korčula – hey when you have a great name, use it.


Korčula is a city that has been around since the middle ages. Its stone masons were famous for their craft and were sent to other cities to carve and place stone. The old city reminded us of Venice – crazy small streets that follow the contours of the land. Somehow in the morning, when we went in for breakfast, we took a wrong turn and actually missed the town. How is this possible? Let me tell you … old cities aren’t laid out like modern ones. I have been lost in Split countless times, we walked around Korčula and got lost (city population is less than 2000), and Ross and I drove around Milan for more than an hour before we found a hotel. The challenge is that the streets aren’t all E/W or N/S, they’re every which way and it’s a challenge.


After breakfast we went back to the dinghy – still there for the second time in a row. Property crime is pretty much non-existent in Croatia. I haven’t seen a single smashed window of a car, or heard of valuables being stolen. I’d guess that the penalty for property crime during the communist era must have been fairly severe … not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. When I hear of the juvenile in Vancouver that has been arrested 150 times for stealing cars … perhaps some Soviet-style justice would be a good thing now and then.