Photo Essay from Mid-July to Early August

Our Route the last week of July took us from Split all the way to Izola Slovenia. We've powered, we've sailed, we've had thunder, lightning, 30+ knots, dead calm and have survived it all.

Trogir from the North Entrance.

An 800 Year old Church in Trogir

Up the bell tower we go, many steps ... don't lean too hard against the railings!

The view from the bell tower .. if you look hard you can see the twin hulls and mast of Gemini.

While it may look pretty smooth here, with 15 knot winds and a 1 foot chop the boys were glad to have blockers in front.

We took the old canal around because it was smoother water .... but the bridges were a tad bit low.

Crew Morale has stayed pretty high throughout and only occasionally do we have disagreements.

Matt serving one of his many `sentences`for uttering profanity ... whistle while you work ....

Ross continues to eat several meals a day more than the rest of us. Based on some deduction we think he is now 5`11`` and who knows how much he weighs ... though he is basically solid muscle.

The Island of HVAR ... kind of like Monte Carlo with Italians instead of French.

The boys waiting for the girls outside the showers at the ACI Marina in Milna

On the other side of Brac, a long walk up the hill was the order of the day.

Hard to imagine why anyone would want to walk all the way up here to build a house (apparently it`s a Hermitage). I guess they like their privacy. It was a good half hour at pace to get up the hill -- then the museum was closed .... oh well ... it was a good walk.

Jessie is finding friends everywhere.

This might be Trogir ... but then again it might be another city -- there are a lot of medieval buildings in Croatia.

This is the city of Rovinj (Row-vin-ny) with a big and busy harbour. We anchored outside the city and had a great day swimming and then

up and at-em to get to Pula.

 Anytime is a good time to check email and voicemail -- especially when you manage to find free Internet.

Ancient Castle in Pula

Pula has one of the best preserved Coliseums in the World. It was built in the first century. Apparently it is the 6th largest remaining amphitheater in the world -- seating some 20,000 people for Gladiator battles and other spectacles. While it is smaller than some, it has much of its structure intact and using Pula, archaeologists have been able to recreate what the original structures look like. Really it`s a lot like going inside GM place or a football stadium.

Pula also sports a castle at the top of the hill ... go figure ... and we could keep an eye on the boat anchored in the harbour from here.

The forum at Pula was impressive too. This is about 1é4 of the original building, but it`s cool to stand on stairs that were raised a couple thousand years ago.  The Triumphal arch from the 1st century BC may have also been a golden gate in Roman times

At the museum at the Castle Ross found a way to satisfy that he`s been unable to play Airsoft since we left Vancouver. Go big or go home!

And to close out the photo-essay, we include two pictures of the kids doing what they love the best.

Bouncing in the waves at Sakarun on the island of Dugi Otok.

To Heck with Going North -- we're heading South!

We had headed north for the first several trips …. It was now time to try south for a change of scenery. We sailed into Vela Drvenik dropped a hook, but decided to move to a less crowded bay. We anchored across from a house being built – and at about 7pm a boat pulled up with a load of Portland Cement and Navvy Jack on board. Three guys humped about 25 bags of Portland Cement up the stairs and piled them up, then came back to the boat and loaded the Navvy Jack (aggregate and sand mix for concrete) into 5 gallon pails and moved a couple of yards of material up the steps manually. Just like Parker Island. In the meantime we were treated to a three race-type boats with loads of German young people anchoring (actually one boat anchored, two boats wankered) and I lost a bet with Ross – I bet there would be a topless girl within 20 minutes. He was right, they kept their clothes on the whole time … silly girls.

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.

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.

Quirky Things in Croatia

Menus come in at least 4 languages (thank goodness we’re close to Brittain!) But sometimes things get interpreted in a most interesting way. We went for breakfast and there was a menu item called “Hemendecks” and nothing else – no language break out. I asked the waitress and she looked at me like I was crazy…then said it fast a couple of times…try it…has something to do with pigs and chickens and a breakfast item.

Service…well, actually, there isn’t much. We’ve learned to not have expectations. I think most people like to just sit…and sit…and talk…and sit…and drink coffee (or beer)…and sit and talk.

Anchoring – in many bays/harbours here one has to pay for anchoring. Yes…anchoring! Not just using a mooring ball, which makes sense to have to pay for. We’re getting used to it but still find this a bit over the top. We’ve learned from locals that most Croatians on the coast (it’s different in big cities like Zagreb), want to make enough money in the summer to not work the rest of the year, hence paying for anchoring and pretty high prices on fish and meat (pizza and pasta are very reasonable though…yay for us!).

Parking – the people of Croatia park…ANYWHERE! I mean on the sidewalk, on the garden area between the sidewalk and the road, in the wrong direction, on the meridian, on the road blocking the cars parked off the road AND the traffic. It’s like, hey, I need to go the bank, I’ll just drive up to the door, park and go in. Haven’t seen anyone give out tickets yet…

Helmets – there are lots of scooters and motorcycles and 70 percent of riders don’t wear helmets at all, 20 percent toss on a helmet and don’t do it up, straps dangling (we love that one!)…and about 10 percent (likely tourists) actually wear a helmet. We saw a scooter, with “dad” driving and his two kids riding one in back and one in front of him, no helmets, no shoes, no shirts…nice.

And of course…Banana Hamocks and Nudity. It’s EVERYWHERE! Trying to convince Ross and Matt to don a hammock for a photo op – no success yet. An incident of note, we have a plastic ball we play volleyball with on the deck (and whoever lets it go overboard has to jump off and retrieve it) which went AWOL unbeknownst to us. Kids left it on deck…go figure? So I hear a whistle and look up…a rather large man in his dinghy is driving up to the stern, ball in hand, wearing nothing but his Ray Bans (should have been Dirty Dogs!). A big smiley thank you and a nod and smile back and off he went, butt crack and all.

And that’s a wrap!

A Day in the Life

So…what is a day like here? A typical day starts by 7:45 am because that’s when the marine weather forecast is broadcast on VHF. Matt and I are usually up to listen and then enjoy some quiet time. For Ross and Jessie, the day starts anywhere from 9 am to 11 am – Ross being the last and is most often dragged out of bed for breakfast. He’s a grumpy old sod until food is ingested and then he becomes normal.

A morning swim and “Joy Bath” takes place shortly after breakfast, although Jessie and I use proper shampoo. This is an ocean bath and wash up finalized with a cold fresh water shower off the back of the boat.

KP duty is assigned by rotating days with one person responsible for breakfast and lunch dishes and two assigned to dinner (making it and cleaning up). One gets a day off and or offers “floater support”. There is of course the consequence of dishes…language on the boat was getting a bit grim, so a new rule arrived. For each swear word you get a “tick” and after 5 ticks…you’re on dinner dishes. So far double duty for Matt and Ross has done it once. Jessie and I sit at 3 ticks each. This spurns creativity and so things like “Cockfosters!” and “Balderdash” and “Nicompoopity” have become commonplace.

Depending on how far we want to go that day, we haul anchor and get going but usually we take it easy and depart between 11 am and 1 pm. Then sail to the next destination, referring to charts and pilot books constantly. We may go to a quiet anchorage and swim and enjoy nature or head to a town to explore and experience the history and culture (and provision things we need). Our shortest day was to remain in one place because we liked it and we’d made friends with another family who stayed, and our longest day trip has been 48 nautical miles. But the sailing (or motoring) is part of the fun! We often slow the boat down to 2 – 5 kts and toss a long line out the back and jump off the boat to catch the line (kind of like fishing and you’re the bait) then haul yourself in…and we do this MANY times.

Once we find a place we either anchor, grab a mooring ball, or tie up stern to a dock or waterfront seawall. Cocktail hour (with or without cocktails but sadly mostly with) around 5 pm and dinner around 8 pm – most people even eat later than that! Dishes are done, the kids do their journal, then a game of cards and/or some reading out loud, maybe a radio drama listened to. We’re about ¾ the way through the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and we’re all enjoying it immensely! (And learning what it was like to be a part of the German Occupation during the war). School hasn’t officially started yet but both Ross and Jessie have each done an oral and written report which were presented last night – Ross on Tides Around the World and Jessie did Winds of the Mediterranean. Very interesting and useful under the current circumstances.

And off to bed around 11 pm.
And that’s a day in the life…

Photo Essay of the First Half of July

The Modern Family communicates electronically

Making rock walls appear to be a time honoured passtime of Croatians

Ross soaking up the information from his computer.

Everybody takes a turn driving .... Jessie being the captain of the Gemini

The intrepid voyagers escaping from the sun

The Cliffs at Dugi Otok

Ross looking into the sunset at Kornati anchorage

Jessie mugging for the camera

The water here is unbelievably clear

Marina looking great on the beach at Sakarun

Sunset at Dugi Otok

The education happens impromptu looking at a 1 cylinder diesel from the 1950's

Driving in the Croatian Islands can be dangerous.

Who wouldn't want to kiss this beauty?

Ross looking at the Zadar coastline.

Matt getting a spa treatment from Jessie. Ross wants a red-beard, Jessie a blonde.

Heights can be deceiving from a distance ... check out the next couple of pictures

Jessie being "Mr. Napkin-head"

Matt after Jessie's spa treatment.

Marina looking very relaxed indeed.

A rock-scape at Piskera ... it looks like the moon.

Gemini at dock at Piskera

Marina modelling a wrap given to her by Gillian Akins.

The girls having fun on the dock.

Ross going "horizontal"

Jessie leaping off the bow

The kids can jump ... having a ball at Primosten.

Another beautiful sunset at Primosten.

May All Telecom Executives Experience Purgatory for a Period of Time

Did I tell you that T-Mobile sucks!!! Their service is …. Wait a minute …. There is no service! To connect to the Internet you need to do a very complex 4-part process ,,, and of course the messages are in Croatian. There are 2 ways to connect to the Internet, basically $5 per day or $0.50 per megabyte. Unfortunately for me, they default to the $0.50 per megabyte and if you don’t follow the instructions exactly … you use a whole bunch of credit up. The $100 of credits I have bought should have lasted 20 days but I’ve used them up in 4 – did I mention the directions are in Croatian?


Some of the service is using GPRS Edge – aka S-L-O-W, some is on HSPA so the performance is great. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it takes forever to connect. Basically all I want to do is give them money … every time I connect to the Internet charge me for a day I don’t care --- but $30 for downloading my email because I didn’t get the sequence right (oh and by the way the only way to tell is to query how much is remaining in your account – which BTW costs you money to do).


So Dear Lord … if you were to answer my prayers …. You would make every Telecom executive (excepting of course my friends at TELUS) in the world spend a month in Purgatory getting their cellphone/internet stick/WiFi Hotspot to work within a limited budget – while following convoluted instructions in different languages and calling callcentres that 1) don’t answer 2) don’t understand the questions let alone the answers; 3) really only want you to get off the call asap so they can get their callers-per-hour metric higher.


I’m out