Wednesday 3 August 2011

Cruising Croatia: the trip north


Celebrating my 58th birthday with Andi, Lea & Georges from TE ARA
 The start to our 2011 cruising season was a very social one, as we left Malta in mid May sailing with Philip and Henriette on Waterdrincker. Our first stop in Sicily was the tiny port of Marzamemi where we caught up with old friends Te Ara. We sailed on to Syracuse and spent a glorious few days there and then went on to Taormina where our paths went different ways as we continued around the south of Italy with Waterdrincker.

We toured the areas around Crotone with Philip and Henriette (Waterdrincker) and then waved goodbye to them as we made our way the next morning towards Prevesa in Greece. We wanted to see the parts of the Ionian that we missed out on last year and also stop to do the first service on our new engine before getting to Croatia in the summer madness.

Greece is always a place of contrasts and after seeing the ‘fjord’ to the east of Prevesa with quant villages and more ruins to admire we went for some blue water again on what we were sure would be our highlight this time round in Greece, namely the lovely islands of Paxos and Corfu. We stayed a whole week in the little town of Gaios in Paxos and took bus rides and rented a scooter to explore the island. Very touristic in a nice way and most enjoyable.
Paxos Island - the northern anchorage


From Paxos we then motor-sailed (we were in the ‘Motorranean’ after all) to Corfu to anchor under the old fort in calm blue seas. From here you can see Albania across the water and listen to Greek music from the taverna on the beach. A car rental and another week later we had experienced crazy tourist drivers and a thunderstorm or two with a swell in the anchorage to match any ocean crossing.


At this point we motor-sailed to Montenegro as the storm force headwinds abated. We gave Albania a miss as we had heard that one was either welcomed with open arms and kisses on both cheeks or robbed and shot on sight if you believe other cruisers’ tales.

The old town Kotor in Montenegro takes the picturesque prize in the region and is proudly operated by the local mafia who can teach the Italian cousins a few things apparently (which is why the Italian navy is patrolling the seas here and the minefields from the WW2 are still clearly marked on the sea charts).


Magnificent Montenegro

Being the daredevils we are we did not take a shortcut through the minefields even though we had been assured no one had been blown up for a long time. We arrived in Kotor to find it a really lovely, great place and, you guessed it, stayed a week enjoying the old town, food and artsy culture.

All good things have to come to an end and as there was no wind we motored on to Croatia. By now we were really pleased with our new engine that had already clocked over 100 hours. Checking in to Croatia, we emptied our wallet in favour of the taxman for the pleasure of being in these waters. To our surprise we found ourselves anchored next to three other antipodean yachts, two of which we would meet again later in the season.

Croatia is great for sailing with many islands and anchorages to stop at, some with lots of history. We sailed via Lopud to the island of Mljet, also a national park, and waited out some strong north easterlies (the dreaded Bora winds) here and ran into more Aussies, including Gail & Alex on Stefanija, and Carola & Jim on Koza.


On the island of Hvar

We made our way slowly north visiting many towns and anchorages in Korcula, Hvar, Drvenik Veli, Murter, Pasman, Ugljan, Molat and Mali Losinj to name a few.

The reputation of turquoise waters in beautiful bays was not exaggerated, and with more leisure time to explore the surrounds than our two week cruise to Croatia some six years back had allowed, we really enjoyed rediscovering this truly magnificent archipelago which is a sailing paradise.

Our ambitious program had us in Pula at the northern end of Croatia, by the end of July for our ultimate goal of the year, Venice. Here we caught up with Gerlinde & Martin on Mojo, Austrian friends we had first met during our winter stay in Finike 2 years ago. We also ran into Koza again and met June and Pat Antares , a Kiwi boat (the Boxing Kangaroo flag has really done its work this season!!).


Roman Colesseum at Pula

Venice was not to happen however. We did attempt a crossing early one morning and were greeted with 2-3 metre breaking waves at the entrance to Pula harbour, and simply turned back. With squalls and thunderstorms forecast for the next week or so, it was with great sadness and disappointment that we decided the weather gods turned against us dishing out thunderstorms galore for two weeks.

There is the flip side to everything however, as we changed plans and decided to prolong our cruising in Croatia by another month, giving us the opportunity to visit some of the other islands that we had missed out on going north, including the stunning Dugi Otok national park.

So here we are sitting sipping a good glass of wine as we plan our next moves to take in as much of this wonderful archipelago as possible.