BIBOA’s 2011 CROATIA CRUISE – by Pam Goddard

Saturday 21^st May

3am start….. groan! A drive up to Gatwick for the 5.30am flight to Split. Most of us only half awake and groggy, but a few started the holiday early by getting the beers in on the plane. We arrived in Split where the weather was already warm and sunny, even at 8am. Our hosts, Aventur (http://www.aventur-agency.com/) had sent Tea (pronounced Teya) to meet and greet us and show us to our coaches to Trogir and our first excellent hotel of the holiday, the Palace Hotel.

Too early to check-in, Aventur had arranged a briefing in the hotel. However, one half of the group managed to lose the other half and we couldn’t find the briefing room! They eventually sent out a search party for us and we were reunited. The briefing started; length of boat, speeds, fuel economy, distances, hotels, moorings……. I could barely keep my eyes open even though the topics were so exciting………

The skippers went to the Aventur office just down the road to hand over their papers, whilst the rest of us enjoyed a coffee/beer and waited. Then we all went off to examine the boats, working out where everything was and where we could store our bags etc.

Then some of us walked around the old town with its narrow cobbled streets and winding alleys. You could cross the river on both sides of the town and we discovered a street market where we bought some cherries and then walked around the old stone walls.

Finally, we were able to check-in, relax (try not to fall asleep) before meeting in the bar for pre-dinner drinks.

The restaurant recommended and booked was beautiful. It was in the old town, in one of the cobbled streets and had no roof. It was like entering a normal restaurant, but there were only stone walls and no ceiling. It was a warm night, so open air eating was not a problem. The food was good, the wine flowed and being our first night of holiday, everyone was excited and looking forward to our first day on the boats.

Sunday 22^nd May, Trogir to Korcula

We mustered, packed our bags and were ready to leave by the agreed time of 10am (how did we manage that?) We headed off across a flat sea in sunshine. 2 boats decided to go mid-channel and ours plus the “mothership” decided to hug the coastline and take in the scenery. About 30mins into the cruise, we had pulled in closer near a beach resort. As we approached, I noticed a single dolphin near this bay and followed its course for a few minutes. Further on, we decided to pull into a small harbour called Krilo which was packed full of boats – some ex-navy, some small cruisers being refitted. We squeezed in between two of these and a few minutes later the mothership came alongside. We thought that they had followed us in, but in fact they hadn’t seen us at all; it was just a coincidence. We all went ashore for a coffee which was a delightful break. Then on we went to our lunch meeting spot, a small town called Makaska. There were some lovely quayside restaurants which most people took advantage of, but we decided to sample the local bakery pastries and the local bread and cheese. We took a stroll into the old town, discovering the town square spring that looked ancient, but people were still using to wash their hands and take a drink.

Then on to our overnight stop at Korcula. This was a picturesque, old, walled town with cobbled streets and winding alleyways. We had to cross a bridge into the walled town and passed a church with its strange gargoyles and several tiny restaurants with just a few tables on the sloping cobbles. Finding a restaurant to hold a fairly large group was going to be difficult. We finally found a suitable restaurant, but Trevor and I decided to go back to a tiny restaurant for a romantic meal alone. We sampled the local wine and dinner was wonderfully fresh seafood, followed by some local dessert. During the meal, we could hear some harmonious singing and sporadic applause. On our way back to the hotel, we passed the source of the music; a group of 5 men singing choral harmonies without any musical accompaniment in the shadowy archways of the church. It was magical.

Monday 23^rd May, Korcula – Dubrovnik

The weather was warm and sunny again, and the sea was calm. We followed the coast again and took our own route. We pulled into a small bay for our mid-morning coffee. We later discovered it was called Podobuce. We went into the only building that looked remotely like a café and asked if we could have coffee. The owner – a one-legged man - said that the machine would take 20mins to warm up and offered us Turkish coffee instead. We said that we didn’t mind waiting, but after repeating that the machine would take 20mins and would we like Turkish coffee, we took the hint and agreed to Turkish coffee - which still took 20mins to arrive! Over coffee, he began to ask us a few questions about where we were from and where we were going. We explained that we were on our way to Dubrovnik and he got his laptop out to show us on satellite maps where we should stop for lunch.

We followed his recommendation which took us to Sipanska Luka on the island of Sipan. It was a lovely harbour with a church, hotel and some restaurants. We chose one near the stone jetty and had more seafood. The food was great and then happily replete, we continued on to Dubrovnik. Paul Beaurain put in a waypoint for Dubrovnik and then stretched out on the back seat for an afternoon nap. All that sun, good food and wine was getting to him. He didn’t wake up until we had arrived at Dubrovnik old town and stuck our nose into the old harbour. Unfortunately, this was not where our marina was! We had already passed it some 20mins before! We had a look around the old town from the water. There was a café perched on the outside of the walls which you could only get to from inside the wall, then headed back towards the suspension bridge that we had passed which marked the way to the marina that we were booked into. Just outside Dubrovnik there were massive cruise liners moored up that looked like blocks of flats on the water.

The hotel was great – Roger had managed to get us upgraded to some very grand suites! The breakfast room was overhanging the sea. Roger and Julian had booked us into a restaurant for that night right next to the harbour in the old town. Considering its location, surprisingly, the food was no more expensive than the other restaurants and we had a fantastic meal, even though the starters arrived at the same time as the mains – more squid! Dubrovnik was very interesting and lively; a beautiful old town with cobbled streets and old churches with music being played in the square. Some buildings had notices fixed on them describing the occupants’ experience when their house was bombed. The ice-cream shops were fabulous!

Tuesday 24th May, Dubrovnik

The next day being a lay day, some of our group took advantage of the swimming pool which had a direct view over the sea. Others explored the old town. A few of us decided to try and get to Montenegro by sea (only some 30 miles away). However, on checking with the rental company, we were advised that the boat did not have papers to cover being taken into another country. So, we went to Lokrum, a small island opposite the old town which had some swimming spots and was inhabited by lots of peacocks. Some of us went for a swim in the crystal clear water. Then we headed on towards the border with Montenegro and tried to stop at Molunat, a harbour close to the border. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to find a suitable mooring as we didn’t want to risk scraping the boat on the rocks in the shallow water. On the way back towards Dubrovnik, we stopped for lunch at Cavtat. We were challenged about mooring up, but then the same man told us where we should eat! He wasn’t wrong – the restaurant and the food was great… erm, more squid. The waiters were very good and they included a free aperitif and a free small taster before our meals.

Wednesday 25^th May, Dubrovnik – Hvar

We had quite a long journey (about 100 miles) to get to Hvar where we were to stay for 2 nights, so agreed to try and leave at 9am instead of the usual 10am. Julian Lyas and John Adlard were the first to set off for the marina. The rest of us were delayed by the lack of taxis. By the time we got to the marina, we discovered that our boat had nearly sunk overnight! John and Julian had arrived to find that the marina had put a pump on board to empty the back of the boat which was completely immersed in water. The batteries were under water, but luckily the engine started. After about an hour of emptying water, testing the electrics, buying a new bilge pump we agreed with Aventur that we would stay in sight of the other boats and try to make it to Hvar even though we had lost the gps system and radio. Luckily, Trevor had packed his handheld radio which we tested and worked so that we could contact the other boats.

It was a long (very hot and sunny) cruise to Hvar. There wasn’t much to see as we wanted to push on to get through the distance. Our only stop was for lunch, but this proved to not be the relaxing stop we had hoped for. The only place open for food was a small shop which was just about to shut. We all filtered in and bought bread, cheese, crisps, drinks etc. to be eaten on the boats. We were feeling the heat and put the biminis up for some shade, albeit fairly limited. After that stop, we pressed on and after several hours of constant cruising, we finally arrived at Hvar, very hot, sticky and dehydrated. I think Trevor had a bit of sun stroke as he was ill the following morning…… it couldn’t have been anything to do with the carafe of red wine could it?

Our hotel was in a great location, right on the harbour side. After a quick freshen up, we adjourned at the bar to re-hydrate and didn’t move from there until dinner time. Hvar town was again a lovely old walled town with cobbled streets. There was some filming going on at the harbour side which we later discovered was for an episode of “Missing”, an American series. We found a small restaurant on the sloping cobbles. The food was so good Trevor and I went back there the following night.

Thursday 26^th May, Hvar Island hopping

Aventur arrived with another boat for us to use. It was a very similar boat but slightly smaller, with a bigger engine. Paul B was like a boy with a new toy! Most of us went out on the boats to visit the Green Cave and the Blue Cave. The Green cave was one where you could go in one opening and come out of the other opening next to it. The Blue Cave, we could only look at from outside as we had to get a tour boat if we wanted to go inside. We stopped at Biševo for lunch. The only café open was serving only drinks and no food. Luckily, we had brought our leftover bread and cheese from the previous day and asked permission to eat our lunch there. The owner had no problem with this and even brought us some tomatoes to go with our bread and cheese! After lunch and a quick swim, we cruised back to Vis, where we treated ourselves to some ice-creams to make up for the sparse lunch.

Friday 27^th May, Hvar – Trogir

We all set off together heading for the famous sandy beach at Bol. We dropped anchor and jumped into the sea to cool down. Before long, we had started a trend and a few other boats had anchored there too. We basked in the sun and swam some more and then it was time to go on to Bol town for lunch. After lunch we headed “home” to Trogir, taking the clockwise route round Čiovo Island to allow us to see the other side of Trogir town.

Our last Croatian meal together was a celebratory one in an open air restaurant similar to the first one.  The wine flowed freely! Aventur joined us later on and presented Roger with a stone plaque of some famous Croatian Goddess (I think). It was a nice gesture, but I’m not sure what Roger thought about lugging the weight of it in his luggage!

Sat 28^th May, Split - Gatwick

Summary

The weather was hot and sunny, the sea calm all week. The towns were picturesque, the hotels were wonderful. The food was great – we mainly stuck to the seafood, namely squid most of the week. The local people were very friendly, with English being spoken fluently by most.

A HUGE THANKS to Roger and Julian Lyas for organising this very enjoyable cruise.

Click here to see the photos of the Croatia Cruise in the photo gallery.