This was to be a week-long charter with four friends, celebrating a big birthday, visiting a new country, and enjoying some good sailing. We chartered a 42-foot Jeanneau sailboat at Biograd, with plans to make a loop around several islands and towns in northern Croatia. Here's a map:
http://www.croatia-map.net/default.asp?
Our yacht, the “Havana Moon” was our home for the week. Among the four of us on board were the captain and crew members who doubled as a chef, a translator and a navigator. We spent each day sailing from one island to another, went swimming, watched dolphins swim alongside, ate delicious meals every day on board, and visited the islands where we moored each evening. We all learned a lot about sailing and had a great time!
Our sailing plan took us from Biograd (south of Zadar) to the west, then north. We started out on the inside of the barrier islands, then outside, and back in around the big northern islands.
The first leg of the trip took us from our home base, Biograd, to the small island of Iz. Our first shot at the “Med-moor” – backing the stern to the pier while attaching a mooring line to the bow, often in a narrow space between two other boats – was successful, and the crew earned their happy hour drinks. Dinner that evening was at a local restaurant on the other side of the marina, where we shared a seafood dish complete with whole fish, crayfish, mussels, squid, vegetables and french fries. We began our Croatian wine tour here, sampling different wines each night to explore them all.
The second leg of the cruise started out beautifully, with calm seas and morning fog. We had light winds at first, so we motorsailed to make headway. Along the way, we took some time to enjoy the clear blue waters using a swim line off the stern.
Winds picked up later in the day as we approached the tiny island of Silba. We thought we would find a mooring ball and anchor outside the shallow harbour, but ended up at a pier again, squeezed in between a large sailboat and a larger motorboat.
Our Austrian neighbors on the motorboat, who were concerned mostly with protecting their pretty fenders when we docked, nosed in quickly to give unsolicited advice. They told us how to fix our mooring line and gave us conflicting information about the weather. The polite British couple on the sailboat gave us regular reports on the weather, and offered advice about other islands where they had sailed.
On exploring this little island, we found that there were no services at the marina or businesses on land, so we dined on board, to the envy of all of our neighbours in the marina.
We did find a local man selling wine and spirits out of his home, so we sat and had a sampling of drinks and anchovies. We left there with three water bottles filled with red wine, white wine, something bright yellow that tasted like turpentine and a pickle jar of anchovies. We enjoyed these treats for several days!
At about 1:30 in the morning, the strange weather report came true: a “bora”, with gusts of wind that pushed the boats up and down, side to side, and threatened to do serious damage. Our impolite Austrian neighbours insisted we had done it all wrong but finally listened to my orders to move their fenders. Our helpful British neighbours suggested we turn on the engine to pull ourselves further away from the concrete pier. We didn’t get much sleep that night. In the morning, an Austrian was luckily out of reach when he said to me, “I told you so”.
We followed our British neighbours out of the slip, but got stuck along the way when another sailboat full of pushy Austrians made our escape difficult. We got stuck in between two boatloads of them, finally working our way free and backing out of the harbour at high speed, glad to see the island disappear as we turned and headed north.
Leg three took us to a large island, Losinj. There are two main towns here, Mali Losinj and Veli Losinj, which translate to “small” and “large” Losinj, respectively. They are just the opposite of their names, however. Mali is the big town, with a long harbour and plenty to see and do. We stopped at one of the marinas a few miles from town, where we had plenty of space and good services. By this time the crew know their jobs and do them well.
The town of Mali Losinj is reminiscent of Turkish coastal towns, with small fishing boats at the town docks and active town life going on all around. We were able to get a taxi from the marina into town, then did some shopping, found a nice restaurant for dinner, sent emails from an internet café, enjoyed gelato for dessert, and took a taxi back to the marina.
On leaving Mali Losinj, we had two options: the “safe” route - taking the long way around the island and starting three hours later, or the “risky” route – taking a shallow canal through the island and getting a head start on our day.
We followed several other sailboats through the canal, and entered the channel as we crossed to the island of Pag. There was no wind, so we took advantage of the calm to swim, dive under and check for damage from the stormy night, and a relaxing lunch. As we approached Pag and the marina at Simuni, we dropped the dinghy into the water so we could use it to explore the inlet.
Simuni had a very nice marina, part of the ACI group of marinas with excellent facilities and services. We were not close to Pag town, so we took a private taxi from the marina, and had a personal tour along the way. We spent several hours in town exploring the old town, a local neighbourhood, and supported the relatively new tourism industry.
Pag is known for two things: lace-making and sheep cheese. And so we bought both! The cheese was an adventure: we saw a little sign, “chesse” and followed it to a doorway with a pair of shorts hanging over it. The door was ajar, so we knocked, poked our heads in, and met the man of the house, dressed in an undershirt and jeans, in a hallway lighted by a bare lightbulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling,. We negociated with the help of the crew translator, the man sliced and weighed portions using a rusty kitchen scale, he offered us each a slice to taste, we swatted at flies and we went home with a kilo of cheese.
Nearing the end of our cruise, we headed south from Pag towards Zadar and Biograd. We wanted to find an anchorage for our last night out, but we also wanted to visit the town of Zadar and needed fuel. So we combined these three things. We sailed to Zadar, noting on the charts that there were three or four possible anchorages along the way to check out. We found a nice one, in Petrcane, near a marina and campground. We dropped anchor once, didn’t like the location, so we picked up and dropped again in a different location. It was beautiful and peaceful. We took the dinghy around, drank the rest of the wine, ate anchovies and cheese, and relaxed in the peace and quiet.
In the morning of our last day out, we headed directly to Zadar for fuel and a short visit of the city. Two crew jumped off at the fuel dock to go into town, while two of us fueled up and took the boat out of the harbour, away from all the ferry traffic. After an hour, we put the dinghy in the water and sent one crew member to the harbour to pick up the other two. I sailed across the channel a couple of times while waiting, then brought the boat near shore to pick up the dinghy.
The three crew members in the dinghy left the pier, and the engine ran out of gas...in the middle of the harbour entrance, along the ferry route, nowhere near our sailboat!! So, I sailed towards them, ready to perform man-overboard drills, with the swim line hanging off the stern with a mooring buoy attached, and circled the dinghy… three times. We finally got it right on the third try, after plenty of stress and laughter.
After Zadar, we continued on to our home port of Biograd and spent one more night there before checking out in the morning. We had breakfast together, walked to the bus station and started out on other adventures…
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