Monday 24th September

After humming and ha-ing for a bit over which marina to be in when our guests arrived, we finally decided that the best place was Skradin and with that in mind, we pottered up the now familiar Krka River to the little port and tied up on the quay. Previously we've been in the marina which is fairly close, but the quay is just the best place to be, as there are plenty of comings and goings and loads to watch. Our guests arrived fairly late in the evening, but not too late to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate their arrival before we got everyone settled in, with the warning that they would have to be up at a reasonable hour the next morning!
And they were...which meant that we were able to get the first boat up to the national park where the famous waterfalls are situated. Although Frank and I had been there twice before, the impact of these beautiful falls was as strong as ever, and along with Con and Gill and Bob and Janet, we walked the nature trail and then bathed in the fairly cool waters before returning to Skradin in the early afternoon. Once back, it was a quick turnaround and then we were on our way, easing back down the river and out to sea - a fabulously calm sea, the colour intensified by the cloudless blue skies overhead. Our destination for night 2 was Dugi Otok (which translates as Long Island) and a secluded anchorage we visited much earlier in the season when we had Charles and Liz and Tim and Annabel with us. This time there were more boats around and we were just minutes too late to pick up the last available buoy but that didn't really matter, as we found a quiet corner and dropped the anchor in solitude. A short while later, a little motor boat appeared on the horizon and zipped its way towards us. Once it was close, we could make out that it was a grocer's boat, filled with fruit and veg, all on offer for weary travellers who hadn't bothered to stock up sufficiently before they left port. Sadly for them, we were well provisioned, but Con promised that if they returned in the morning, he would buy a watermelon and some bread. They did; he did. The evening was lazy and relaxed, sitting in the cockpit eating lasagne and drinking rather good Croatian red wine (Zlatan Plavac, since you asked), and went by all too quickly.
Frank and I had promised ourselves a return visit to the Kornati Islands when we visited earlier in the year and with the sea still utterly calm and the weather pretty gorgeous, we motored down from Dugi Otok to the northern end of the Kornati National Park and then meandered between the islands, enjoying the sunshine and getting a good look at this fascinating place. Its impossible to describe these amazing islands in any way that does them justice as they are in many cases somewhat featureless and barren (see what I mean) but they have a haunting beauty all their own. Several enormous crosses lying flush high on a hillside were a memorial to the sixteen (we were told) people who died in a fire on one of the islands a couple of years ago. Nobody was quite sure how things got so out of hand, but there were fears that some old explosive device or a deposit of flammable liquid had been in the path of the fire and blown up when the firefighters were too close to escape the inferno. The youngest was a teenager.
Our trip through the Kornati took several hours and once we reached the southern end of the park, Frank pushed the throttles forward and turned Zaffina towards the island of Vis. We arrived in the town of Komiza just in time to get the very last place in port and tied up between a small motorboat and a fishing boat, which was sadly attracting rather more than its fair share of flies! The swatters went into overdrive and we managed to deplete the fly population quite significantly, but never quite enough to stop them bothering us! One of the reasons for heading to Komiza was to try a restaurant that F and I had earmarked on a previous visit, so we went haring up there almost as soon as we were tied up, in order to book a table. And were completely out of luck! The restaurant was booked out for a function and we had to settle for a pleasant but not especially memorable meal at another place nearby. Fortunately its situation, right on the waterfront, added to the evening, as did the company of course!
After a couple of lovely days, the forecast was threatening that things were about to change and so we took advantage of a lull before the storm to anchor off for another night, returning to an inlet near Vis Town for a peaceful night on the water. In the morning, with clouds gathering, we crossed to Palmizana, the marina just a short water taxi ride from Hvar, and managed to blag our favourite place, tied up to a tiny quay. Surprisingly, the clouds dispersed, so we took the taxi to Hvar and had a fun afternoon wandering around the town and trying out a few cocktails en route before returning to Palmizana as the clouds regrouped. And then it was two days of rain, storms, wind and high seas, which saw us venturing out only to get wet or to head over to Zori, another favourite restaurant about 15 minutes walk from the marina, where we enjoyed a couple of excellent meals and yet more of that very good wine. Well, you have to do something to cheer yourselves up when the weather turns foul!
With just two days left once the rain had passed, we knew that we had to abandon our original plan of taking our guests to Brac and instead, when we nosed out of port, we turned back to the north and the island of Solta. We had expected the sea to be pretty lumpy after the conditions we'd been experiencing for the previous couple of days, but it was nothing of the sort, and we ended up thoroughly enjoying the two hour trip to Maslinica. On previous occasions when we'd been there, the port had been crammed to the gunnels with motorboats and yachts; this time, we shared the place with jut a handful of other craft. We were directed to moor alongside two medium sized motorboats and were surprised, once we were tied up, to hear our neighbours ask the marineros if they could move! Apparently, we had stolen their sunlight!! We thought the whole idea was rather ridiculous, but our (English) neighbours were deadly serious and rather put out when another boat came in and promptly went into the berth they'd hoped to move to. Relations were somewhat strained between our boat and theirs from then on, with rather a lot of rude comments about small boats being put in the shade and how awful it is to be overshadowed...
Our last day all together was spent in lovely conditions in a little anchorage on the island of Drvenik. Last time we were there, we'd had a real problem with getting the anchor to hold and had to try about a dozen times before we were finally made fast; this time, fortunately, everything went like clockwork and we were secure within minutes! A yacht came in and anchored quite close, and I mentioned to Frank that it looked familiar. After a while, we swam over and chatted with the owners, discovering that we had last seen them three years ago in Portugal, when the husband had come on board Zaffina for a drink and a chat in the little port of Villa Real de Santo Antonio!
Having a chef on board has it's advantages, as we found out when Bob took over the barbecue for lunch and then prepared his famous "peaches au Bob" for desert! It was a wonder that we still floated when we went back in the water later, but surprisingly we did...just! After the last swim, it was time to up anchor and head into Trogir and another great place on the quay. The town was still fairly lively, despite it now being so late in the season, and we went ashore for a light supper before an early night. And then Janet gave us one final, perfect moment, when she stepped back on board Zaffina, knocked the water hose that was connecting us to the shore and gave herself an impromptu shower on the bathing platform! Strangers were stopping to stare at the sight of five of us convulsed with laughter and the sixth doing a good impression of a drowned rat! It was an appropriate, if unexpected, culmination to a week filled with laughter, fun and friendship.
The silence seemed very loud the following day, when Bob, Janet, Con and Gill departed and we were alone again. A quick trip to the supermarket to stock up on food and the green market for flowers was followed by a trip to the refuelling berth to stock up on fuel and then we were on our way again...all of one mile to a peaceful anchorage where we could quietly recover from the excesses of the previous week! We stayed there for one utterly still and very beautiful night before heading down to Split and checking into the marina.
And then I was really alone. Frank flew back to Jersey and I had two days and one enormous thunderstorm on my own. A mighty crack of thunder woke me at 2.30am and the noise and the flashes of lightning then kept me awake until 5...not the best of nights. However, I managed to console myself with a trip to Split's biggest shopping mall the following day - but that's not saying a great deal! By the time Frank came back, two days later, Zaffina was sparkling again and we were ready to put back to sea, this time heading south and back to the island of Brac. The wind was behind us, giving us a great trip as we crossed the channel from the mainland, and when we reached our chosen anchorage, all was calm and incredibly beautiful...but rather cool! We both wore sweaters for the first time since early Spring (apart from on visits home) and when we went out to dinner, it really felt quite cold sitting outside. A plate of steaming veggie soup followed by an enormous pile of piping hot lamb cutlets both cheered and warmed us!
In the morning we debated whether to head up towards Sibenik and a small marina we'd seen but never visited at Tribunj or to delay the trip. In the end, we did a bit of both, making a short hop from Brac over to Stari Grad on the island of Hvar, where we had another night in complete isolation in an utterly beautiful and unspoilt position, and then yesterday (our 6th wedding anniversary) we completed the trip to Tribunj, again with the wind behind us and the sun beaming from a cloudless sky.
And now, safely tied up in port, the wind is blowing a hooley, waves are smacking the hull and all the ropes are creaking, but we are snug and happy and still enjoying this wonderful country.