We only had a few days with our last set of summer guests, Tim and Gail. We took them to one of the bays that we thought they would like, Gornja Krusica in Otok Solta We had been there during Camp Por Dos. It is a small bay, with no facilities of any kind: no shops, no restaurants, no bars and, thank the heavens, no disco :-). It has a nice trail around the south shore among pine trees and beautiful deep-blue clear waters. We spent a couple of days here just chilling.

Next we sailed to a very popular shallow anchorage with turquoise waters, Krknjas (you are on your own for the pronunciation of that one!) in the southeast corner of the island Velik Drvenik. From there it was just a quick sail to Seget, a town west of Trogir, where our friends Marcus and Jasna have a summer family house, with wonderful views of Trogir, an old Venetian town. We had a typical Dalmatian dinner at their house (thank you Jasna's mom!) while I abused their hospitality and did 4 loads in their machine washing :-)

Next day, we packed everybody (Tim, Gail, Marcus, Jasna and their two kids Dejan and Tija) in Por Dos for a day sail. We dropped anchor and stern-tied to the shore in Otok Polebrnjak, an islet across from the west side of Otok Solta. We swam, walked around the tiny island and had a wonderful time. Jasna got two fish which ended up as dinner for two local kittens that were living in their courtyard.

The following day Tim and Gail were flying back to Boston. We say goodbye to our friends and anchored in Razetinovac, an uninhabited bay in Ciovo, from which we visited Trogir (by dinghy) and Split (by ferry from Trogir).

Split was a surprise. It is a vibrant city. Granted the old walled city was crowded with tourists, but it felt lived-in in contrast with the touristic and manicured Dubrovnik. The market outside the walls was full of locals buying produce, flowers, shoes, clothes and anything in between that you can think of buying.

Armed with Rick Steves' guide to Croatia (thank you Sarah!) we did the self-guided walk of the Diocletian Palace (enormous retirement place of this late Roman Emperor). We particularly enjoyed the visit to the cellars, the peristyle - now a main square - and the vestibule, where an all-male a-cappella group was singing traditional songs.

Trogir was also nice. A small walled Venetian town in a little island connected to the mainland by a short narrow bridge with heavy traffic going at snail pace - which is even slower than turtle pace :-)

With favorable northerly winds, we sailed to Uvala Gradina, Korcula to spend the night. In the morning we motored 2-miles to the main port of Vela Luka, where we did a big grocery shopping in order to spend all our Kunas and be ready for our crossing to Italy.

On Saturday, August 16, we said goodbye to Croatia and departed for Italy.