Sunday 5th August 2012

We got a bit fed up with Kastela in the end. It wasn't the prettiest marina and the facilities were somewhat lacking, but we did have one great experience. The crew from one of the superyachts that was stuck in port with us invited us along to a barbeque on the breakwater and it turned out to be a brilliant evening. There were four or five massive yachts there, and all the crews know one another so when they have a do, everyone rocks up and contributes to the barbie. Very handy when you've got a chef on each boat...as the only private boaters there, we felt privileged to be included.
After a couple of days on our own, we returned to Sibenik in readiness for our next guests. Frank's grandchildren, Ben and Lucy, haven't been on Zaffina since we were with her in Jersey four years ago. We picked them up from Split airport late in the evening, aware that the forecast wasn't looking too great for the first few days of their stay. Sure enough, even as we drove back to the marina, flashes of lightning lit up the night sky. Fortunately we had the car at our disposal, and with no chance of going to sea for a while, we drove to the waterfalls at Krka and spent a fabulous afternoon exploring them with the youngsters, and swimming in the cool, refreshing waters at the bottom of the falls. As we were leaving, a couple of young guys suddenly appeared on the ledge of the falls, (in an area clearly out of bounds for swimmers) and dived from there down into the frothing waters. A pretty dangerous thing to do, but impressive nonetheless!
Our next outing was to the little town of Primosten, one we had tried to visit by boat but been unable to get into the marina due to our size. Although it had a certain charm, it wasn't quite as pretty as we had hoped, and with the temperature up into the high 30s, we didn't spend too long there, opting instead to head for a beach and the chance of a cooling dip. As soon as we set out our towels, the wind came up and the skies clouded over, so our outing was curtailed and we returned to the marina for a rather grey evening, brightened by a good meal at the Blue Frog.
It was a relief to eventually get to sea with the grandchildren the following day, but with the forecast still not great, we didn't want to go too far so we followed the coast down to Marina Frappa, in the hope that the swimming pool would be open for them to enjoy. It wasn't! Instead the heavens opened and we had a rainy afternoon in port followed by a very good dinner in the marina restaurant. The weather didn't dampen our spirits, but it was still a relief to see a good stretch of blue sky the following morning and to finally hear a forecast that promised better weather conditions. We left port early and turned back towards the north, this time weaving between the islands over a beautifully calm sea until we got to a delightful anchorage we recently discovered with the unusual name of Potkuchina. This was more like it! Ben and Lucy spent most of the afternoon and evening in the water, finally getting to enjoy the sort of holiday we had promised them! Our next stop was the gorgeous port of Maslinica on the island of Solta, and then we hoped to spend the following day and night at Drevenik, which is just a quick hop from the mainland. Again the wind thwarted our plans and although we had a great afternoon at anchor and the children got the chance to do some dinghy driving to the nearby town and back, we had to abandon our planned overnight stay and find a more sheltered spot on the mainland coast in which to anchor. In the morning, we had an early trip to Kastela where we hopped into a taxi to take our guests back to Split airport.
Once back on board, we struck out for Stari Grad on the north coast of Hvar, stopping at Milna on Brac for fuel en route. It was stonkingly hot and the refuelling took forever - I think the tanks were filling up drip by drip, which was bad enough for us but worse still for the boats waiting behind us in the queue! Getting back to sea was a huge relief, and we gulped in the breeze as we sped across the water to Hvar.
Stari Grad is accessed via a long inlet which has a number of creeks leading off it, so rather than going up into the town, we found a nice sheltered spot and dropped the anchor for the afternoon. And then it was so nice that rather than going up into the town for the night, we found an even better spot to drop the anchor and tie on a stern rope and we stayed there, in the company of about half a dozen yachts and tiny motor boats. Most of the larger motor boats opt to go into port for the night, whereas our favourite place to be is in a secluded anchorage with not a house in sight. In the morning we took a dinghy trip up to the town, which proved to be rather gorgeous and the perfect place for a spot of breakfast and people watching.
The forecast was now predicting that the wind would rise later in the day, so we decided that we would, after all, take Zaffina into port, and lunch time, when we reached the town, it was getting fairly blowy. The mooring procedure was tricky enough due to the conditions, but made more difficult when the two marineros seemed to have no idea of which space they wanted us to go in, directing us first to one and then the other, and then handed us two port side lazy lines and nothing for starboard. It wasn't a great arrival but we were still relieved to be tied on and happy to explore the pretty little town further. In the evening, we went to one of the many tiny restaurants in a narrow lane for dinner, and walking back to the boat, stopped to listen to some street entertainment.  An excellent group were playing rock songs from the 50s to a wildly appreciative audience, but it was a small child, aged about 3 or 4, who really caught our attention. He was completely lost in the music and danced like a lunatic on speed to every number, oblivious to the crowds around him and thoroughly enjoying himself. How I wish I'd had my video camera with me, he would have been a YouTube sensation!
With conditions looking better the next day we decided to venture out a full mile or two, back to our previous anchorage for one more night. Once the anchor was holding, I diligently swam to shore with a rope and tied us securely onto a rock, then repeated the process with another to make sure we were firmly in place. Later in the day, we put another rope out, confident that we were safe for the night. But the best laid plans....! At 1am our anchor alarm blared in the cabin, rousing us rudely from sleep, and bleary eyed we ventured up to the saloon to see that the wind had completely changed direction since we went to bed and although we were still in situ, we were getting rather too close to another boat for comfort. I was about to swim to shore when Frank had a brainwave, and instead we used the ropes already in place to pull the dinghy across to land and then spent about 45 minutes re-attaching those same ropes to other rocks, which would then prevent us swinging too far. It was a relief to crawl back into bed but a bit frustrating when the wind immediately dropped away to nothing, rendering all our hard work a bit of a waste of time!
Promising ourselves a return visit to Stari Grad later in the season, we put back to sea and made a short hop across to Sveti Klemente where we decided to anchor for a day and night. Anchoring, however, proved rather difficult! Every time we dropped the hook and fell back to make sure it was holding, the anchor dragged and Zaffina fell back rather further than we'd hoped. After five attempts we abandoned the spot we had hoped for and moved to another position, where we were relieved to hold fast on our first try. And at that moment a buoy became free, so we immediately pulled up the anchor and instead went and tied on! Sveti Klemente (or St Clement's to Jersey folk!) is one of the few places we've found where many of the superyachts chose to stay at anchor overnight, and now that we're into high season, it was suitably crowded that evening. We ate ashore, as the buoy we were on belongs to a nearby restaurant and whilst it is free to use, you are expected to give them your custom in return.
Last year, we briefly visited the island of Vis and although we quite enjoyed the experience, it didn't feature high on our list of favourite places. I had wanted to go back and give it another shot, and then some friends had suggested that we should visit a town on the far side of the island which we had missed out on last time, so early the following morning, we struck out across the channel between Hvar and Vis.
Before going into Komiza, (our destination) we tied onto a buoy for a while just outside the port, but by early afternoon we were getting worried that there would be no room left on the quay if we didn't grab a place soon (it is one of the few ports that you can't book a space in advance) and so we dropped the buoy and ventured into the marina whilst the sun was blazing down on us. The moment we were tied on (this time all went smoothly), we stood on the bathing platform and thoroughly enjoyed a cold shower! Later in the afternoon, we made our way to a tiny pebbly beach a few minutes walk from the port and whiled away a few hours watching the miniscule stretch of seafront get more and more crowded! When we left at about 6pm, there was a queue for our space and fresh towels down almost before ours had been rolled away!
Komiza was absolutely humming when we went out for dinner, with cafes and restaurants along the waterfront packed with noisy crowds, but the atmosphere was great and we fell in love with the little town. We chose a restaurant a bit further out than most, where we got the last table on a terrace overlooking the sea, but sadly it was just after dinner that we found the most perfect restaurant just a stone's throw further on, in an old lobster nursery. That one has been earmarked for the future and the telephone number noted so we can book well in advance!
After a quick shopping trip in the morning, we left Komiza and decided to have a quick look at Bisevo,  an island just four miles further on and a real favourite with the day trip boats. It was pretty enough, and we did try to stop off in on of the sheltered anchorages we found, but it was too crowded to get close in and the water too deep to anchor far out, so we abandoned the idea in favour of a return to Vis. As we were leaving, an Italian motor boat was heading up the creek with a skipper who either had no idea of or no regard for the rules of the water. Boats are always meant to pass one another port to port (ie your port side facing their port side) if there is limited space, but this one decided to try to cut across our bow and head for our starboard side, despite the fact that his route would have taken him straight into, rather than across, the aforementioned bow. We haven't seen such bad seamanship in a good while and it was the first time I'd ever heard Frank use the horn in anger (in addition to yelling loudly and shaking his fist  at the oncoming boat). They pulled round at the last moment, completely ignoring us and gazing steadily in the opposite direction, realising I think that they were entirely in the wrong and hopefully feeling embarrassed by the faux pas (but maybe not).
With that little episode behind us, we set sail back to Vis and opted to go into a deep and sheltered creek close to Vis town. We had been here last year and found, to our surprise, a submarine pen carved into the cliffside, and on that occasion we took Zaffina deep into it, just for the thrill of the experience! This time we anchored deeper up the creek and had a delightful afternoon and then night there, watching an enormous golden moon rising over the island and then sleeping on the flybridge under a canopy of stars. It was too beautiful to move, so yesterday we just stayed there, taking a dinghy trip across to Vis town to get some fuel during the day and then returning, again by dinghy, for a pizza dinner in the evening. When we got back to Zaffina, the moon had just risen and as we sat in the cockpit enjoying a last drink, a cascade of soulful notes floated across the still water; on one of the nearby boats, someone was playing the saxophone and after each number, cheers and applause came out of the darkness from everyone anchored in that little creek. It was a magical experience.
The magic evaporated at 3am! As I slept, Frank was woken by the wind and went on deck to see that we were getting uncomfortably close to a yacht that had come in last night and moored fairly near to us. He pulled in some anchor chain in the hope that this would solve the problem but returned to bed not entirely happy with the situation. At 5 he was up again and this time I heard him moving around; eventually the engines started up and I could tell that we were on the move. A short while later, we stopped again so I went upstairs to give Frank a hand and together we got the dinghy back on board and prepared Zaffina for departure. I went back to bed whilst he took the helm and when I woke an hour and a half later, we were well on the way to our next anchorage.
And now we're safely in Potkuchina, a lovely spot not far from Sibenik which is where we need to be in a couple of days time, ready to fly back to the UK on Wednesday and then on to Ireland the following week for a certain wedding. The bakery boat arrived shortly after we did, offering still warm loaves fresh from the oven, so despite the ups and downs of the last couple of weeks, life is still pretty fantastic.