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DESTINY DAIRY
SEASON 2009.
Part Seven.
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| My favourite place.
| Beautifully green
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As we said before, we stayed in Dalmatia and did not go to the north of Croatia. We visited the Krka waterfalls 3
times in all, the woodlands, the clear water with a secure anchorage and the small village of Skradin with its
tiny riverfront and cafes. I walked up to the top of an old tower and had a beautiful view of the area,
including the town, the river and lakes. You can still see some scars left over from the war, houses with big
holes and even the church roof unrepaired.
The other reason I like this place is that each time we came we met new cruisers such as Phil and Margaret on
'Argos' who introduced us to the 'Dragnet'. These are long term cruisers from all over the world Americans,
Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, even one or two English speakers. Every morning at 8am they contact each
other on the short wave radio keeping in touch, informing who is where and swapping useful information. We could
hear people cruising in Croatia, Italy, Greece and even France.
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| Wtih Chris and Carol enjoying the Falls.
| Always lots of fun meeting with Roy and Moira.
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On our second visit to the falls we stayed ten days! As we were arriving, Roy and Moira on 'Halcyon' appeared
alongside, they were just leaving Skradin to fly back to Scotland with their grand children. But John and Roy
kept on talking for so long that they finally stayed for the night. I made Spaghetti for everybody and we had
a great evening.
The next day we met Bob and Sam on 'Blue Banana' from the USA; Bill and Becky on 'Stardust' also Americans and
Liam and Anny on 'Gone with the Wind' a catamaran from Australia. These were/are the founders of the 'Dragnet'
and call themselves the 'Herd',they have been cruising for several years, so it was interesting listening to
their experiences sailing up from Asia, through Red Sea and into the Med.
For a change, we decided to walk to the falls, but we took the wrong road and went up and up and up a hill
until we realised our mistake and had to come back down to the boat, completely exhausted. The following day we
took the ferry and saw the road we should have taken. I enjoyed walking around the water falls again, on the
planked paths, going over the different streams that flow through and join together, to finally tumble down to
the bottom main fall.
As we returned to the boat we found the Pele and Lulu on 'Froggy' moored not far from us, then later Chris and
Carol on 'Philipidies the Famous' arrived. We were reunited again first time since Brendisi! Again we had a
great evening. The following day we walked to the falls again, this time with Chris and Carol and had a swim.
We finally left Skradin for Primostern, a small fortified town on an island. We treated ourselves to a
restaurant and listened to a concert in town.
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| Rogoznica.
| Stomorska.
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Next stop was Rogoznica, we anchored off and went to visit the new modern marina to see what we were missing
and found that, that same evening the election of Miss Dalmatia was planned but John refused to go after I'd
chained him up! We continued our way southward, stopped on the town quay of Stomorska, a small village on
Solta island; that was real Croatia as we had expected to see during our visit of this country, friendly people,
small stoned houses around the harbour palm trees and good restaurants.
We missed a rendez-vous with PIII and went to Vrboska on Hvar before continuing to Brac and anchored in Sumartin
then on U Tocinjak; both were nice anchorages but spoiled by a blaring all night disco from a mainland holiday
resort, 5 miles away.
Peter and Coralie came to see us so we returned to Split where we found Roy and Moira on 'Halcyon' who were back
from Scotland. Like us they were not enjoying Croatia and were heading south. From Split we went to Kastela
Marina, our first marina for 3 weeks. Being close to the airport, it's the home of more than 250 charter boats!
but being Tuesday, it was empty, all the charter boats were out. Unfortunately for Peter and Coralie, the
weather changed to rain and wind as soon as they arrived so we left the boat in the marina and took the bus to
Split to show them the old town and the Diocletian Palace, or what is left of it.
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| Walking down the wooden path.
| My favourite place.
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Of course we had to show Peter and Coralie our favourite spot at the falls in Skradin. We enjoyed again the 9
miles trip inland up the scenic river Krk and Moffi was suitably impressed. This time we met another yacht
called Destiny from the US owned by Kent, he had a beautiful dog 'Jolie'. I went to the falls with Peter and
Coralie because 'Destiny' had sprung a water leak somewhere in the plumbing and it was the captains priviledge
to sort it out. He found a hole in one of the pipes hidden down in one of the most inaccessable places behind
the mains transformer and had to change the water pump as well. Poor John, he really hates plumbing, (or it
hates me - Ed) but as usual he did a good (fantastic - Ed) job, but it was not the end, the next day the fridge
had defrosted overnight, soaking the carpet. John found a loose connection to the compressor, so not a big
problem, just a big mess.
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| Meet the locals.
| Meet Jolie!
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| Hard life on Destiny.
| Racing boys against girls
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We left the river for the last time and headed to another good anchorage we like on the island of Kakan
U.Potkucina. There we met Mark and Amanda on 'Balvenie' from NZ and David and Sheryle on 'Samsara' from
Australia, (more members of the Dragnet gang). The following day Phil and Margaret on 'Argos' and Liam and Anny
on 'Gone with the Wind' joined the party. But things got spoiled when a guy came to ask us to pay for being
anchored! We were not very happy about it and all refused to pay the 200kr, despite his threat of a fine of
2000kr. Mark had a long discussion on the phone with somebody, but it was no use, there is too much corruption
and it seems some locals take advantage of a popular anchoring place, lay down some buoys and then asked
everybody to pay, even if they use there own anchor. They come late evening when it is too late to leave and
this gives a really negative feeling about the country and has soured many peoples opinion of Croatia. The
following day we returned to Marina Kastela to take Peter and Coralie back to the airport. Unfortunately for
them we did not have the best of weather, but there's always next time.'Argos' had also followed us into Kastela
as there was a good Cash and Carry store for restocking. So from here on it was head south out of Croatia.
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| Kastella.
| Another sunset.
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We went to visit the Island of Vis and anchored in Kut, in the evening a man came on a official dinghy asking
for payment, being very apologetic as he realised it was not really a fair deal to ask us to pay for being on
our own anchor, but we gave him the 70Kr he asked at least were allowed to use the quay for water and
electricity if we wanted too! In the morning we took the dinghy to Vis, a nice town but did not really have time
to visit as we wanted to continue to Rukavac on the south side for a swimm.
Next Island back to Gradina on Korcula where we stopped in June, the following morning needing bred and milk
we took the dinghy to Vela Luka which turn out to be a nice town. Onward south and we motored between Korcula
and Peljesac Islands, a beautiful narrow gorge like passage. We passed the picturesque town of Korcula and
stopped at the end of the Island between Badija and Planjak anchored in front of an old monastary, that is
being rebuilt.
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| Korcula
| Monastry
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| Kut
| Vis
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Then we moved on to the cove of Polacé a national park on the Island of Mljet where we found 'Argos'. We took
the trip to the lakes of Jezero and visited the former Benedictine monastary which is also being rebuilt. The
water is the lake is very salty and warm, almost too warm to be refreshing. We had a nice long walk back to the
boat.
I think we made a mistake when we arrived in Croatia in heading north towards Split, because the best cruising
is southern Dalmatia. Vis, Korcula, Mljet and Lastovo are very green islands, with pleasant coves, you can go
ashore and walk around, not like the barren rocks to the north. - Too late now, never mind.
On Sunday 23rd we went to Dubrovnik and on the way stopped on the island of Celo and anchored in Kolocep bay
for lunch and a swim, then made our way up the river Dubrovacka, which is one of the few places you can anchor
around the town. 'Argos' were still with us, so we took a bus into Dubrovnik. I liked this old town and
despite its 'huge tourist' trade, it is worth seeing. We entered the town through the Pile gate and took the
walk around the wall, some 2 kms and up to 25m high at some points. We walked through the town to the harbour,
unfortunately the maritime museum was closed and we were too weary to visit any other museums. John had had
enough of old stones, but he and Phil got a haircut at a very unusual barber shop. (Hey everybody needs a
souvenir - Ed)
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| Dubrovnik from inside.
| Dubrovnik from the sea.
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It was the end of our visit to Croatia, we cleared customs in Cravat and went onto Montenegro.
So what do I think of Croatia. Looking at all the pilots and brochures. Croatia looks a wonderful place to cruise
among its thousand islands, but in reality it was difficult to find any suitable spot to anchor. They were
either pay anchorages even if you used your own anchor, too busy, too small, too deep, or full of
mooring buoys and restaurant docks (both of which you pay for; or eat at the restaurant), too noisy with disco
music, and once you finally find a place you liked, there was nowhere to walk onshore. It is a tourist trap, pay
for this, pay for that and not done in a friendly way.
From all we saw, the south Dalmatian coast is probably the best, the islands are bigger, greener, more
accessible and you can find shallow anchorages and visit the islands.
In general, although the people were friendly, something was missing. Will we comeback? I don't think so!
Next episode MONTENEGRO....
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| Polace
| The other way to cruise!
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