The day after Philippa and James left we remained in Trogir Marina and worked on the decks.  To maintain the fine brown colour of the teak we use a two-part solution.  First a UV protective coat and, once dry, a clear Nano sealant.  It takes both of us working all day, somewhat exhausting in the heat but once done the decks look as they did when we bought Exotica.

 

As we motored towards the entrance of Trogir bay we noticed very dense back clouds to the west moving quite fast towards us, so our planned sail south to the island of Hvar was changed to the ever secure anchorage of Vinisce. Here we weathered yet another storm comfortably at anchor. A good decision as we heard the storm intensified and by the time it got to Korcula, near Hvar, there were winds of 70 knots with blinding rain blowing 54 foot yachts sideways.

 

A gentle sail the following day to Hvar, probably the most famous of the Croatian islands for expensive living and wild parties of the rich and famous.  We found a delightful spot with three adjoining bays near Starigrad and picked up a mooring in the middle arm.  During the afternoon a vast charter fleet sailed into the right arm.  We took the dinghy round to have a look and counted sixty-five yachts and catamarans all rafted together, calling themselves Yacht Week.  A brief search on the internet revealed that this was an organised sail in company where the average age was twenty-seven. We expected a huge noisy party but apart from a little bass noise we were not unduly disturbed, or could a short, sharp shower at 11pm have dampened their ardour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three years ago we visited the north of Korcula, this time we wanted to see the western coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved on every day to another island and met up with our friends Juliet and Nick Mason-Jones on their yacht Johanem.  We met them first at Porta di Roma in 2014 and have kept in touch, meeting from time to time particularly this year as our plans are roughly similar, we both intend to winter in Greece.  Here we got together at Pomena on the island of Miljet.  We moored stern to at one if the six restaurants on the quay. The mooring is free provided you eat at the restaurant which we did where they cooked great steaks and fish over the wood fired stove.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there we went to the little town of Slano on the Croatian mainland, just north of Dubrovnik, and booked into the marina for the night.  Apparently, the town was completely destroyed by a Serbian bombardment in the Yugoslav war of 1991 – 1992 but has now been rebuilt.  There are, however, still a few reminders of this tragic event.

It was in Slano that we had to make a complete change of all our plans for the rest of the season.  Our intention all year had been to go to Greece via Montenegro and Albania. Unfortunately, the crew we had invited to help us do the trip had to cancel for family health reasons.  We were not comfortable going to Albania where the infrastructure for yachts is non-existent without at least one more experienced sailor so we abandoned that plan and instead decided to cross over to Italy and cruise down the east coast before crossing back to Greece.

 

En route we stopped in Sipan, a secluded bay with elegant reminders of days gone by. we have fond memories of our night there three years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then to Lastovo, the most south westerly island of Croatia and where we could check out with police and customs.

Here we had an interesting experience.  We had tied up the now disused seaplane pontoon next to the police shed and were permitted to stay the night. It was a calm night and we expected no problem.  However, at midnight a huge ferry arrived and its wake caused a surge on the boat sufficient to break off one of the cleats to which we were attached with an almighty bang.  Julie was not asleep and rushed up to see us slowly swinging round on the bowline towards the rocks.  Dashing about in our night attire we managed to get the engine on and get ourselves back into position and a cat’s cradle of lines to every available cleat on the jetty.  On closer inspection they were all made of a very soft alloy and simply not up to holding any substantial vessel.

The next morning, we called the police at 3.30 am, we were checked out of Croatia by 4.15 am and on our way to Italy.  It was very dark and motoring out of this tiny harbour with two sharp right angle turns, avoiding the considerable shallows, caused some anxiety especially as the aforementioned huge ferry was right behind us but once clear of the island we were headed due south.

 

 

 

 

 

It was trip of 96 nautical miles to Bari where we arrived after thirteen hours of motor sailing across the Adriatic seeing very little other shipping and no wildlife at all.  All the dolphins seem to have disappeared from the Mediterranean.

We had three days in Bari and were joined again by Johanem, who were surprised to find us in Italy rather than Albania. Bari has a substantial old town right on the port. It was of particular interest as a friend’s mother was there in the NZ Nursing Corps from 1943-45. She recalled the ferocious German bombing which devastated Bari and blew up a US ship secretly containing mustard gas, a retaliatory measure in case the Germans resorted to gas warfare. Many seamen were killed and injured but the authorities refused to tell the medical staff the contents of the ship, severely hindering the treatment given. This information was not made public until 1972.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We motored 64nm in nine hours to the next large port of Brindisi. A less comfortable trip as there were storms around which we could plainly see and managed to avoid, although along the edge of them were some strong winds.  We tied up in the Brindisi Marina during a lull. This was the port we departed Italy in June 2015 to Montenegro and Croatia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strong NW winds kept us in Brindisi for four days. Johanem caught up with us again for the last night.

 

 

 

In NW 18-20 and very choppy seas we left Brindisi yesterday for a 30nm run to Santa Foce di Meledugno, a rather uninspiring fishing town with several sandy beaches full of Italians on their holidays.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow, August 31^st we leave Italy at dawn for our final passage to Greece.

 

It seems that the only time we get to update this blog is when we are sheltering from a storm.  This is the case at present as we are tucked into a well sheltered bay, Vinisce, near Trogir, with 50 metres of anchor chain down and keeping a close eye on the boats and land surrounding us.

 

Our trip to Munich was a great success. It was, of course, for the Ring and we were privileged to hear, arguably, the four best singers in the world of the present generation in their respective roles. The first Act of Die Walküre with Jonas Kaufman and Anja Kampe was the best we have ever heard, as was the whole of Götterdämerung with the magnificent Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde and Stefan Vinke as Siegfried.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On one of the non-Wagner nights we went to Les Vêpres sicilienne by Verdi, an infrequently performed opera but a most enjoyable evening.

There were many Australians attending this Ring and, coincidentally, a tour group were staying in our hotel which was only a short walk from the Opera House. So, we had many friends to chat with during the intervals as well as our Munich friend Jürgen Lüders who was in town as well.

 

On a day off from opera, we took a tour to Regensburg, a well-preserved medieval city on the Danube, untouched by bombing unlike Munich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another tour of Munich was Hitler and the Third Reich, where we walked around the city with a guide who gave us an extended history lesson on the formation and the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party in Munich.  It is interesting to us that Munich appears scarcely to acknowledge its role in the war and the holocaust whereas Berlin appears to have embraced it with many monuments and commemorations. Our guide was quite critical of the Bavarians, not surprisingly, she came from western Germany.

 

It takes a couple of days to really appreciate the Residenz of the Bavarian dukes, electors and kings from 1508 to 1918. There was a castle on this site in 1385. It houses rooms and art collections from the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo to Neoclassicism and bears witness to the taste and political ambition of the Wittelsbach dynasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We returned to Kastela on Saturday July 28^th. and set off the next day not without as certain amount of trouble.  Terry, unfortunately forgot to cast off the starboard mooring rope which we tore away from the shore on our way out, and finally, having come to an abrupt halt in the middle of the marina, let it go to the bottom.  Luckily there is plenty of room in Marina Kastela, no damage was done, except to his amour proper, but it did cost us 80 Euro for the diver to retrieve it.

Since then we have had, until today, almost continuously settled weather, which means continuous sunshine, light airs in the morning, a stiff westerly in the afternoon and quiet nights.

We have stayed in the area around Split and the offshore islands as we have had two lots of visitors, our friends from Munich, Maria and Jürgen, were with us for six days.  They had only ever stepped on a yacht once before, a twilight race with us on Sydney Harbour, and we were concerned that they would find it a bit daunting.  However, the weather was very kind, and we experienced many of the pleasures of this lifestyle including mooring in crystal water on islands and local restaurants where the menu is meat, fish or calamari and the wine is red or white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last weekend Terry’s niece, Philippa and her husband James, flew out for three days. Again, the weather was spectacular and we had some excellent sailing as well as some charming anchorages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were the usual owners blips since our last blog. The bimini, which shades the cockpit, stitching was coming adrift so we paid up front for a sailmaker to re-stitch it while we were in Munich. On our return our perfectly fitted bimini had a corner flapping and the zip broken. Josip swore it was intact when he re-fitted but Julie would not be so easily fobbed off, so he sent his minion along who would have also denied responsibility had our teak deck “nano” guru not been visiting us. He insisted, in Croatian, that it be fixed and returned by 10am tomorrow….and it was. Thank you Albert.

It’s handy to have a chain counter next to the helm when dropping the anchor but this, too, failed. Two electricians took two hours and 800 kunas to do a twenty minute repair. Thankfully, Terry watched the process carefully and will do it himself next time.

 

This is the end of our time in this part of the Adriatic.  When this storm abates we will be heading south, checking out of Croatia and picking up our next crew in Montenegro on our way to Albania and finally Greece.