Since entering Croatia last Saturday night we have been touring the islands that make up the coast along the Adriatic Sea. It has been a whirlwind tour. We have been staying one night in anchorages scattered around on different islands as we work our way North towards Zadar. Some days we have made a stop for lunch on one island then moved on for the night anchorage at another location. Zadar is our goal for the sailing portion of this adventure. It is where Koinonia will staying for the winter.
The coastal Croatian islands are a sailors’ playground. It is a beautiful place to sail. The islands are closely spaced and it is easy to find good protected anchorages from any wind direction. It reminds me a lot of sailing in the Abacos in the Bahamas with a few differences. The islands here are mountainous instead of the basically flat terrain in the Bahamas. 15-20 feet of water here is considered a shallow area. That same level of water in the Abacos is deep water. Water in the passages between islands here drops of quickly to hundreds of feet whereas the Bahamas are all sitting on the Bahamas Bank and the water depth does not change significantly over the whole bank. Anchorages are plentiful ranging from small little villages to major cities. It’s easy to find the supplies you need to keep cruising.
The winds here are great for sailing and other wind-water sports. The channels between the islands are very busy places when the winds gets blowing. Large and small sailboats, windsurfers, kite-boarders all come out in droves. Combined with the giant luxury motor yachts, ferries, speedboats, RIBs, taxis and cruise ships it can get pretty busy. When you throw in the hundreds of charter sailboats on the water you really have to keep your eyes open.
It seems the weather reports are still no indication of what the winds will actually do. We check the reports daily and are no longer surprised when the wind is completely different from the report. If you just come to sail around and not try to get anywhere, every day would be great sailing. We, however, have a goal and need to be making our way North so we have been motoring quite a bit.
Some of the anchorages we have visited have been small and quite and others have been zoos. I particularly like the anchorage in Palace, Mljet. The whole Northern end of Mljet is a National Park. There is very little development on the shorelines. I would guess the small village of Palace was “grand-fathered-in” to the park when it was established. There was plenty of space in the anchorage because many of the mega-yachts anchored out in the canals of the park. They throw out a bow anchor then back down to shore. Then they send the dinghy in and tie stern lines off to trees in the wood. This keeps the big guys from swinging out into the waterways if the wind changes direction.
The port of Hvar was the complete opposite of Mljet. We found a spot way out of the harbor along the edge of the main traffic lanes with some other sailboats. We were about as out of the way as we could get and it was still a busy busy place. Right within our immediate neighborhood was all sailboats. They were coming and going all day long. It is a mystery to me how some people select the spot to drop anchor. The harbor was deep and we had to get close to the edge to get to about 35 feet depth. Not far from our location it dropped quickly to 50-60 feet. Ideally one would like to have about 7 to 1 scope on your anchor chain. So at those depths you would need over 300 feet of anchor chain out. That makes it pretty tricky to predict where you will end up after you drop your anchor and let out 300 feet. That’s why all the sailboats were crowding into our small little corner of the harbor.
Well, the rest of the place was just wild. The traffic never settled down, it was a constant stream of powerboats, RIBs, yachts, rentals, cruise boats, taxis, parasail boats dragging toys behind them, local fishing boats, big ferries and locals puttering around in small powerboats. Many would cut right through the sailboat anchorage with apparently no regard to our anchor lines or to the wake they were leaving. Signs were clearly posted in local languages (I assume) stating the speed limit of 6 knots. Maybe that was not what they said because no one went slowly.
The activity of Hvar harbor made for a very entertaining afternoon. I hoped it would settle down a little bit before we tried to head into town in the dinghy. As the evening wore on it gradually calmed down and we puttered into town for dinner. We got back to the boat around midnight and there was still traffic moving around the harbor. It was a busy place.
I have many pictures to post but the Internet situation here is not good. I’ve tried to get some pictures posted but have not been able to hold a connection long enough to complete one upload. I thought I better just give up and post some text so you know I’m still alive.