Wednesday June 18, 2014

The weather was supposed to be really rainy - nearly an inch forecast. It was overcast early but stayed dry all day. Light wind.

We took our computers to the bar/café at the marina because the router is located there and we got a good internet connection. We took a lot of time catching up, posting blogs & downloading and didn't get underway until 1330.

In Croatia, once you have checked into the country, all you need to produce at marinas are the three official documents: Crew List (stamped & dated like a passport), the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport & Infrastructure Receipt for payment of yacht fees (702 kuna for us. This is valid for one year and covers safety navigation fees, Light dues, Government administration fee and Sea Information Chart.) and the third document is the Vessel on-off sojourn tax payment receipt (600 kuna for us and valid from 31 May when we entered to 30 June the day before we fly back to Maine).

The staff helping boats berth take the papers to the marina office and they are returned when you pay your bill on leaving. Well, we forgot and were outside of the berthing area for boats our size before Paul remembered. The berths are tight and we didn't want to go back in so we tied along side where the super yachts tie up. Staff tried to wave us off but our plea for just a few minutes was accepted.

A sign of aging?

We sailed and powered most of the day--light wind--heading for an island north of Dugi Otok (which means Long Island) called Ŝkarda. We have been having trouble with our old GPS unit that provides position information for radios (VHF & SSB), AIS, Skymate & is our back up for our plotter. Our plotter went berserk but our other instruments & autopilot still work properly. Paul is able to view our track on his iPad however he needs internet access to download charts for our current area. Plan to do that at the next marina. Key people at home get Skymate reports & we can check them when we have internet access. Canty has been reported in Hungary, Bosnia & Herzegovina and other places on land. We reverted to "old fashioned" navigation: charts, timepieces, speedo, dividers, parallel rules, compass, devices for reading bearings & our eyes. Fortunately the weather is good and navigation is not difficult. Our experience sailing in Maine, and Northern Europe--especially the archipelagos in Sweden and Finland--have given us a lot of practice with visual identification. We suspect the GPS is wearing out after 14 years.

Another sign of aging?

The harbor on the SE point of Ŝkarda, Uvala Griparica, is lovely and undeveloped with the exception of a lone, fortress-like building at the head of the harbor. It is very deep--45 meters in the center--so anchoring is not an option. Both shores of this fairly long bay are lined with mooring buoys--about 32 in all. They were all empty except one. These buoys have two lines. The first one comes up thru the ring at the top of the conical shaped buoy and is grounded further from shore. The other line is connected by a lighter weight line that has sinkers on it, to a heavy line that is grounded close to shore. You end up with a heavy mooring line at the bow and also one at the stern with the stern close to shore. There is a steep drop off close to shore & this prevents the mooring weight sliding into deeper water. The depth at our mooring location was 18.6 meters.

Several seagulls came begging & we responded with some stale bread. The fish were much faster catching handouts and the seagulls gave up. Like most all places in the Adriatic, the water is very clear. We could see the schools of fish and bottom. We have been told that part of the reason for the water's clarity is that there is no plankton and there are few fish & birds.

We were going to have chicken for dinner but I forgot to retrieve it from the spot next to the freezer plate so it was frozen. We opened a can of Danish Beauvais gullasch med gulerødder expiration date Jan 2015. The last shopping we did in Denmark was June 2010! With the addition of carrots, onion & garlic & served over farfalle pasta, it made a delicious meal.

Forgetfulness? Another sign of aging? I still had a wonderful day, marking 70 years. Come on--say you can't believe it!

Photo: Uval Gripacrica at Ŝkarda. Also on the fritz is Paul's camera - lens not working right. Photos will be from my little point and shot unless we can find a camera shop.