15 July 2012. We crept away from the Taverna at Polace on Mljet at 7am and made our way down the beautiful deep seaway of the National Park and set sail for Korcula.



A bit of concentrated navigation as we made our way through several narrow passes with plenty of off lying rocks before stopping for lunch and a swim by an off lying Island with the, still intact, remains of a large convent on the shore. Like the grand Monastery on the Greek Island of Symi this convent is in bad need of a clock adjuster for its bells were a little bit out of time.



It was however a beautiful anchorage with crystal clear water and dead flat sea so we stayed on for an hour or so before motoring the remaining three miles into Korcula town where there is a Marina which we entered for the night. All crew head off to visit the old city which is one of those ancient Venetian affairs with very narrow streets build using stone. The street stones had got so shiny over the years from being trodden on by zillions of sandals that one had to watch ones step for danger of slipping and breaking a hip or something. The architecture with its high arches and magnificent steeples was amazing as was the ambience of the whole place. A totally acceptable place to celebrate Jenny's birthday. The main call to fame of Korcula is that it was the birthplace of Marco Polo and the Korculans have not missed the opportunity of making a buck or two out of the historical memory of the old chap.



16 July 2012 Next morning we had the chore of provisioning Elixir for the next few days and topping up the water.



Paid the Marina Fee of 136 euro. That was our second night in a Marina in Croatia and due to the expense for very little in the way of facilities it is not a thing that we are keen to repeat too often. We return to bay of the Convent with the intention of anchoring there for the night only to find that the anchorage had become crowded and the wind was playing havoc . A quick change of plan to find a anchorage further down the coast towards Dubrovnik once again as sadly it was time that we were moving in that direction to drop off Keith, Rosemary and Philip Searle and to pick up Phil Clemow.



1900 hrs being 12 miles later we drop anchor in Trstenik for a very worrisome night being blown by 30 knot plus winds that meant that I had little sleep at all as Elixir bucked and snubbed at her anchor as we were hit by squall after squall.



17 July 0600 hrs and our anchor broke out and we headed straight for the rocks so there was a very active few minutes where all hands were called from various stages of sleep to retrieve the dragging anchor and set sail south. Stopped for a break at even another small island before make our way into Slano, a supposedly sheltered harbour on the mainland. Slano's was virtually wiped out in the wars of the 1990s where every house except for one was destroyed by artillery fire. Amazingly the church also survived.





Now it has a couple of ultra modern looking hotels whose glass facades do nothing to restore what must have been a quite unique little coastal town. As we entered the bay we were approached by a jet ski with a woman in a white dress, complete even to wearing a string of pearls, riding as a pillion passenger. This lady spoke English and invited us to tie stern to with tailed mooring at their Taverna. There were three other yachts moored up there. I was in bad need of some sleep after the rough preceding night so we accepted their invitation. Around the Med if you accept the offer of a free mooring then you unreservedly accept that you will be eating at the offerer's taverna that evening. It looked like a nice place and the safety of being tied to the shore was very attractive to all.






Well when we backed in towards the quay I suddenly became very aware of the depth that looked to all of us as though it could not accommodate us without our going aground. The Taverna owner assured us that there was enough depth and pointed to the larger yachts tied thereto. Five minutes later and hard aground we were stuck for the night. It was high tide and it was unlikely that we would be moving anytime soon.

The other yachts were also hard on the putty! Never mind we had a great dinner and the service was wonderful as was the nights sleep. 0500 and I am pacing the deck trying to work out how to get out of the mud. I decided that there was nothing I could do until the boats next door moved as I needed to use the spinnaker halyard from the top of Elixir's mast tied to the far end of the quay to winch her over enough to lift the keel out of the mud and float off. The challenge with this idea was that the other boats were also stuck. Eventually however I managed to persuade them to allow me to put my line over the top of their backstays to the end and tip Elixir and wulla! We floated out of our sticky trap. A quiet sail over to Sipan for lunch before we noticed a very dark patch on the water to windward and decided to up anchor and bolt from there too. Just in time we got away before all hell broke loose amongst the other anchored yachts and most followed us out of the windtunnel.





No shortage of pretty little towns to look at along the coast.
We made our way from there under headsail alone doing some 8 knots to Dubrovnik where we would anchor in a bay and wait the arrival of Phil Clemow and the departure the following day of the Searles.



A very tired looking Phil Clemow looked like he had hitchhiked all the way from New Zealand! He assured us however that he had only been travelling for 36 hrs.



All on board for the Searles last happy hour with us - this trip.



20th July and we wave goodbye to the Searles who we are going to miss a lot as they were really good company and by the end of their holiday had become very good handlers of Elixir and all of the things that go with being an excellent and fun crew.


21 July and having re-provisioned we head north once again through lots of island and sailing nicely under full sail we cover the 36 miles to Polace National park and anchor with stern lines to the shore.



On the way we get a welcome visit from our friends, the dolphins.







22 July, Jenny and Phil do the bus trip thing to the lakes and I proceed to pay a 1,000 Kuna fine for exceeding 5 knots in my rubber ducky with its 5hp motor. (1,000 Kuna = nz$250 and a repentant red face). I was rather pleased however to find that my little rubber ducky can apparently exceed 12 knots with just me on board. Brmmm Brmmm! Leader of the pack! Latent outlaw!









15:00 and we sailed out of there for one of our better sails averaging 8 knots over the 30 miles to Otok Lastovo. Phil, who was given the helm, had a smile from ear to ear and looked in 7th heaven. For the first time this cruise we set a double anchor as there was lightning everywhere and we were obviously in for a good stormy and dark night. Already there were yachts dragging their anchors in Lastovo when we arrived. Well it blew and it thundered, there was both sheet and forked lightning, a proper light show.

For the first time in the years that we have been coming to the Med we had heavy rain but with our two anchors set at about 20 degrees apart on an angle looking from our bow we sat peacefully all night and now on the morning of the 23 July 2012 I am bringing this blog up to date.