Mljet
01 September 2017
Micasay had left before us to get some more pictures of Dubrovnik all we needed to do was find them should be easy it was open water lots of visibility except for the island we seemed to never be on the same side of..right sorted that. The trip to Mljet gave us the opportunity to try our new kite so exciting. It took a few minutes and woohoo we had all the lines rigged to fly. OMG its huge and colourful. I knew how big it was. Before we left home we had the thing covering the whole living room and up the stairs while we were checking for tears before packing it for the flight but when its up the mast wow. We didn't rush anything and pop there it was.
Micasay must have had the same idea because we looked over and she was sporting a lovely blue kite. As it turns out it was a first for her as well. As we neared Mljet the wind turned and we doused our new toys. They must have seen us coming because two small boats were racing towards us their drivers intent on getting our two boats tied to their mooring balls for the night. The deal is if you park on their mooring ball its free but you must eat at their restaurant. Sounds good to me. The view from the restaurant was hmm trees I guess they did say it was the only restaurant in the area made of wood. We spent two days in Saplunara bay swimming, then we moved to Okuklje bay. In this bay the restaurant had a quay so we stern tied. The restaurant was good there was a truck that came around and sold fruit and veg. We walked around the bay and looked at these really big clams. I suspect that touching one would result in some sort of fine. We spent two days swimming and watching the charter boats come and go. Our next stop was a little bay on Korcula island near Lumbarda I'm not sure why but I cant find its name on any charts. We spent two nights here as well and yes you guessed it we went swimming hehe. However the weather report was showing a bit of a storm coming our way so we thought maybe it was time to find a secure place to hold up. That's when we found this little harbour just North of the city of Korcula. Banja harbour didn't really look much different then any other harbour by that I mean they are all beautiful lined with houses and some restaurants. The thing abut Banja is the gentleman that owns the dark coloured mooring balls Ante. He charged us 20 eu a night for the ball then invited us for a taste of his wine made from his own grapes, offered us a drive into the town of Korcula both which we accepted. (The city of Korcula is a well kept walled city and the home town of Marco Polo) He offered to take us to one of the Restaurants in the bay. Micasay even ended up getting their laundry done while we were there and to top it off before we left the
bay he let us fill our water tanks all we needed to do was keep the boat near enough to the water supply as there was no dock. A very big thank you Ante for making your beautiful home so memorable. Once the big winds had past we headed North to the island of Scedro where we picked up a restaurants mooring ball. Just like every ball we have tied to the skipper dove down to check it out he didn't come back with his usual happy expression. While he felt the concrete block on the bottom would hold us in the light to non existent winds forecast for the next few days he didn't feel that this would be a safe place for a boat the size of Ice Bear if the wind picked up. After some swimming they had the big clams here as well and a nap we hopped into the dingy and motored to the restaurant only to be told that we should have reserved a table they were full.
It seems while we were playing two large charter flotillas had arrived. Flotillas are an interesting thing. Usually there is a boat (We on Ice Bear call this the mother duck) covered in flags. Now before someone gets excited I say flags because its usually a mixture of burgees, pennants and miscellaneous other things flying from the jib halyard. The mother duck arrives and ties to whatever. Then as the day progresses slowly the ducklings arrive and raft (tie) next to the mother duck. The experience level of the crews aboard the charter boats vary from lots to none at all and often the people on the charter boat met the day they boarded for the trip. Sometimes the mother duck crew needed to be very hands on with the docking assistance sometimes all they needed to do was throw a line to the boat. The next day when they leave the crew will help cast off the ducklings collecting whatever may have been left behind to the best of their ability. This enables the cruisers to check out swimming beaches or sight see without having to worry about finding a secure place for the night or apparently a restaurant for dinner. Not to worry there was a second restaurant in the bay and they had room at a table away from the main seating area for people that didn't have the foresight to make a reservation hmm. We shared it with some people from Denmark and had a lively discussion about Lego.
The next morning a boat puttered into the bay selling pastries wow how could you resist a boat full of fresh pastries 24 kn for a doughnut and a croissant mmmm breakfast of champions.