Photo: Old Dubrovnik town from city walls
We left Gouvia Marina, Corfu, Friday 12th June and anchored in Ormos Ay Stefanou for the night ready for an early departure the next morning. Probably not the greatest choice of anchorages, it became quite rolly in the night as the cruise ships and ferries past heading north to Italy.
Discussing the Ionian Islands vs the Aegean, we decided we liked the Aegean Islands more than the Ionian, although the distances between them is further, they are more culturally diverse and have more variety. We found the Ionian very European, there seem to be very large British communities everywhere. Admittedly we did not do Cephalonia and the southern Ionian due to the Corinth Canal and the weather, but the islands we did visit had fewer of the type of anchorages we enjoy and more town walls which we don’t use.
Saturday 13th June we had the anchor up at 06:00 and headed north out of the bay with Lyn and Dick “Wind Pony”, next stop Croatia. We had chosen today for the predicted light southerlies rather than the usual northerly breezes to assist us in the passage north. However, there turned out to be no wind and patchy heavy fog for the first 3 hours. We were thankful for AIS and Radar, as cruise ships and trawlers passed within 0.5 nm of us and we did not see them. The shipping traffic in the Adriatic is heavy but most of it is on the Italian side, not the Albanian side we were travelling through, although we did have to contact one oil tanker on the VHF to ask his intentions, he acknowledged and changed course to avoid us. The night was uneventful, although Gail did wake Brian to check on a Cruise Liner that seemed to be heading straight for us, but Murphy’s Law, when Brian came on deck, the liner changed course to pass inside us. In the morning we listened to the weather forecast from Dubrovnik radio and realised it was an hour late or there was a time difference in Croatia. We should have done more research before we left as indeed, the Adriatic countries are one hour behind Greece, and we adjusted our clocks accordingly and radioed Wind Pony, who also did not realise the time change. At 09:30 Sunday 14th June, we backed onto the Quarantine Wharf in Cavtat and Brian went ashore to clear us into Croatia. Then it was off to anchor around the corner in Uvala Tiha to get some well-earned rest before we began our adventures in Croatia.
The following day Dick and Lyn picked us up in the dinghy and we went ashore to explore Cavtat and try to organise phone and internet. The lady at the Tourist Information Centre was very helpful and we headed off to the Post Office. Unfortunately the ladies there had no English and we were unable to get sorted. However, we stopped at a café for lunch and one of the waiters told us what to buy and if we brought it back to him after his shift finished he would get it registered for us. Off we went, visited the Racic family mausoleum, and walked around the quaint village of Cavtat. We returned to the café and the waiter got our phones working and told us how to register the internet sim so we could try it in the wi-fi router. We could not get this to work, but did get it working in one of the iPads, we will go into a store when we visit Dubrovnik.
Tuesday, with stronger winds in the forecast unfavourable to Tiha, we motored past old Dubrovnik town and anchored in Mali Zaton. When we arrived, Wind Pony had a problem with their watermaker, so while Brian and Dick went to work sorting it out, Lyn and Gail took the dinghy into Vali Zaton to visit the Information Centre to find out the buses to Dubrovnik. That evening Nemir, Bob and Joanie, arrived in the bay and the following day, after clean rain (no Sahara sand) we all got the local bus into Dubrovnik to visit the internet store. The local bus was 13 kuna, about NZD2.50 each and runs regularly, taking about 15mins. The three of us all had Turkcell modems and saw three different people in the store, only Bob and Joanie managed to get theirs going. The next day, after trying to sort the Turkcell modem, we put the sim card in our Indonesian modem and away it went. Dick and Lyn never managed to get theirs going and ended up buying a dongle for their PC and using a sim card in the iPad.
That night the winds picked up in the bay, with high hills we decided it was a katabatic effect. With a monohull, catamaran and light weight fibre glass boat anchored in the same area, we all swung differently and there was a load collision at 03:30 am, we were all up quickly to see what happened. No real damage to prevent anyone continuing their cruising, but did shake us. Talking to other cruising friends a day or so later, the locals said it was a Bora wind, our first and hopefully last.
Thursday 18th we took the bus into Dubrovnik Old Town for a walk around the city walls. It was amazing. The walk around the walls is approximately 2kms and gives great views of the coastline and the city, with its mass of orange terracotta roofs. As it was late afternoon when we finished and we hadn’t had much sleep the night before, after strolling down the main Strada (street) and seeing a couple of the magnificent churches and buildings, we decided to head back to the boats and spend a full day in the Old Town on Friday. We headed back to Zaton and had dinner ashore with Bob, Joanie, Lyn and Dick at one of the local restaurants. The waitress was delightful, she explained some of the Croatian language and wrote down common words, explaining how they were pronounced. We went back to Dubrovnik Old Town on Friday, visited a couple of the museums, the Rectors House, Old Pharmacy, and then caught the local town bus into the port to have lunch with Kiwi friends, Evan and Heather from Methven who were on holiday in Croatia with their friend, Leslie. It was great to catch up as we hadn’t seen them in a while. It was then back to the Old Town to meet up with Lyn and Dick for a drink, we were then joined by Isabelle and Brian “Wasabi” and their friends, Linda and Charlie, for dinner.
We really enjoyed Dubrovnik, the town has rebounded from the bombing and devastation of the first week in December 1991 during the war with Serbia and Montenegro, we talked to a local taxi driver who was in the military at the time and the raw emotion was evident in his voice. Walking around the Old town is awesome, with its stone buildings, narrow streets, lots of stairs and history it truly is an amazing place and one we won’t forget in a hurry.
We finally left Zaton on Saturday 20th June and motored 4nm, anchoring in Uvuala Sunj, Lopud Island. It was raining as we travelled, which is something we can expect in Croatia, given we are close to a large land mass and therefore subject to different weather patterns than we have been in for the last few years. Sunj was a pleasant anchorage with beach facilities and a taverna on shore. However at 18:00 the disco started and with the music at full volume did not stop until 06:30 am, we must be getting old, where do these guys get their energy. One of the things we are still adjusting to here is that it is daylight at 05:00, which means we are awake, regardless of how much or little sleep we had during the night. We therefore decided to move onto Mljet to avoid another night of duff, duff music.