June 2, 2025

The other day, some cruising friends whom we'd met in Greece last year, who had been stalking us (their words) on Marine Traffic, saw that Awildian was currently anchored only about 25 miles from the Pirovac Marina, where they keep their boat during the off-season. They sent us a text via WhatsApp, inviting us to come to dinner when they would be visiting their boat, later in the week.

"Sure!" we said.

After consulting Navily for the possible anchorages between where we were (a pretty little island called Otok Krbela Mala),
and Pirovac, we decided to anchor the next day in a small cove called U. Rastovac, near the southern end of Murter Island.


Otok Krbela Mala

One of the reasons for choosing this anchorage - in addition to its being quite well-sheltered from the forecast wind - was that it's near the little town of Tisno. Tisno straddles the strait that runs between the east side of Murter Island, and the west side of the mainland, just across from it. More importantly for our purposes, it has a bridge that spans the 38 meter-wide (about 125 feet) strait, with a section that lifts to allow boats to pass through.



Transiting the Tisno Bridge (green line) from our anchorage (1), instead of going all the way around the west side of Murter Island (white line), would shave 10 miles from our trip to Pirovac (2).



Some online digging taught us that between the middle of September and the end of May (the off-season), the bridge opens Mondays and Fridays at 9 am. We arrived at Uvala Rastovac on Wednesday, with the plan of transiting the bridge when it opened on Friday morning.

Consulting the nautical charts, we could see that the water under the bridge, even at the deepest place, was very shallow - about 2.4 meters. That was enough for Awildian, as he draws only about 1.5 meters, but it would mean that we'd want to be smack dab in the middle of the channel, because away from the middle of the channel, the water was even shallower.


The bridge when open

While looking online for the width of the opening of the lifting part of the bridge (which I still haven't found), to make sure that Awildian would fit through easily, I saw several photos of the open bridge, some with sailboats going through the gap. All the boats were monohulls, none were very big, and they were cheating toward the side of the gap where their mast would fit through the space left by the lifted span. The gap didn't look wide enough for Awildian to cheat to either side, which could be a problem, as his mast is 22.8 meters (almost 75 ft) tall.

Furthermore, after looking at all the photos, it dawned on me that maybe the Tisno Bridge was smaller than I thought it was. The more I looked into it, the more a "nope" was beginning to form in my mind. We would go and have a look for ourselves.

The next morning, we took a dinghy trip to Tisno, where we took a nice walk around the little town, had some lunch, bought some groceries, and checked out the bridge situation for ourselves.

Some of the sights around Tisno:


A statue at the war memorial. I was happy to see a pigeon memorialized there. Eric said he thinks it's a dove, but I'm sticking with pigeon. Pigeons don't get enough credit.


A tribute to native son, writer, and academic, Vjekoslav Kaleb


A fun sign


A cute little church

When we walked over to have a look at the bridge, the little "nope" became a capital "NOPE": The Tisno Bridge wasn't for us. Maybe the gap was wide enough and maybe Awildian's mast would slide through the opening, but we weren't sure.


Eric beside the Tisno Bridge

The Prudent Mariner wouldn't chance it, just to save ten miles, and neither would we. We'd suck it up and travel around the outside of Murter. Our peace of mind, and the safety of our floating home, made the decision easy for us. Besides, the scenery would be nice, and we weren't really in any hurry.

Here's a link to a video of a catamaran trying to transit the Tisno Bridge. It didn't go well. Tisno Bridge Fiasco

Otok Krbela Mala 43º39.54'N,15º54.33'E
Uvala Rastovac 43º47.90'N,15º39.50'E
Pirovac 43º48.79'N,15º40.15'E