Week 2: Croatia (54 nm)

This was our second and final week of sailing in Croatia as we looked to push on down to better weather and less extortionate prices in Greece. We made our way from the island of Korčula down to Dubrovnik, via the islands of Mjlet and Šipan. It was a week of sunny weather but fickle winds, so our progress was in fits and bursts. We covered 54nm, with a majority of downwind sailing (a rare treat!). We continued to tick off boat projects as we explored the islands, ending with a “mini-refit” of sorts in Dubrovnik where we tackled the last of the big things ahead of the journey to Corfu in Greece. Putting “Serenity First” was our big goal this week and I think we are starting to get the hang of that balance – letting the wind be our guide and taking each day as it comes.

We’d planned to leave Korčula on Saturday to continue our meandering route towards Dubrovnik, but we woke up to a dead forecast and neither of us fancied a day of motoring. Motoring is less fun (noisy engine makes it difficult to enjoy tunes in the cockpit) and also less free (boat engines are not the most fuel efficient, and diesel in Europe ain’t cheap). Travelling by wind is highly preferable on all counts, so we decided to stay another day in our lovely anchorage to wait for better breeze. It ended up being a great day! We had a chance to relax a bit and enjoy the sunshine, and Alec even braved the water for his first swim of the season (based on his report of the water temperature, I shall be waiting some time before my first swim…). It also gave us a chilled day to do a few boaty jobs that we wanted to get to.

In particular, we’d both been itching to get the solar panels mounted and wired up. Spring was finally sprung and with it sunshine was becoming much more reliable. We’d had 400W of panels sitting below decks for weeks and it felt like such a waste – think of all the free energy we could be harvesting! So this became job #1 for the day. Thanks to the perfectionism of our welder, who’d made the solar panel mounts exactly to spec, attaching the panels to their new home on the back of the boat was a quick and easy job. Then Alec set about to connect everything up. There were the usual hiccups that we’ve come to expect with all boat projects – we’d bought about 2m less cable than we really needed and I’d got the wrong size fittings to pass the cables through the deck. Then, after successfully problem solving solutions to these issues, Alec accidentally dropped a piece of one of the connectors in the sea (for which we had no spares). He heroically dove in after it though and by some miracle managed to grab the thing, so by lunchtime the panels were pumping 20 amps into our mini power grid! This gave us such a surplus of power that I egregiously plugged in our 750W electric water heater for a couple of hours so that we could have hot showers. It was bliss!

The next day promised a puff of wind in the early morning, so we pulled up the anchor about 6:30am and made for the island of Mljet (pronounced Mee-YET). It was a short hop and we just managed to get there before the wind died again. We parked up in Pomena, on the very west of the island, which is right in the heart of the island’s famous national park. The park is a large, forested area with two inland salt lakes (one natural, and one man-made by the local monks in the c.15th century, apparently to flood a swamp to help reduce the mosquito population – which I am very on board with). They’ve built lots of lovely walking trails around the lakes and through the park, which we had to ourselves the next day (one of the perks of visiting Croatia’s islands before the season really starts!). Interestingly, it was actually Alec’s second time here – he’d come on a flotilla holiday with his family c.15 years ago – but first time actually going to the park. It was absolutely beautiful, and we’d highly recommend it!

The wind the following day looked good so we thought we might be able to smash out some major miles towards Dubrovnik. We made for the island of Šipan, optimistically planning a long, 30nm sail to the town of Suđurađ on the southern tip. The wind was behind us, so we had our first opportunity to try poling out the genoa. I’m going to struggle to explain this well, as I’m not too experienced myself, but basically this is attaching a rigid pole to the back end of the front sail to hold it out in a specific position (helpful downwind because the front sail can be a bit flappy otherwise). This technique meant we were flying along, but even still it turned out that we’d been a bit too optimistic about the forecast. Rather than end up sailing in the dark we decided to cut in early and go to the port at the top of the island, Šipanska Luka, which is a picturesque town built around a small, semi-circular bay. We were the only boat there, so we could anchor smack in the middle of it. Despite the lack of other boats, it was a very lively town and our central spot gave us an excellent vantage point from which to people watch. We particularly enjoyed watching a local catamaran speed in just before dark and disgorge at least 12 people, clown-car style. We also learned that Šipan is where many of the rich people from Dubrovnik have their vacation homes, which made sense given the abundance of flashy houses in the hills around the bay.

Our travels now are very wind-dependent, as you’ve probably gathered! The next day’s forecast was for little and fickle, so we stayed two nights in the bay. It was a lovely place to be stuck, and I took the opportunity for a long walk up into the hills, which were full of lovely old churches and more pretty houses. Alec had a leisurely day setting up our spinnaker lines. Plus the wifi from the local café was so good we got signal on the boat!

The wind returned the next day and we were able to make the final short hop to Dubrovnik. We’d intended to moor in the commercial bay, as opposed to the main marina in town, because our friendly surveyor, Srecko, had insisted this was a better spot. Unfortunately they were full so we were forced to go up the river to the fancy shmancy main marina. This had some eye watering prices (£80 per night, for a mid-week day in the off season!), but we didn’t see any other option. We made the absolute most of their hot showers, electricity and water, trying very hard to get our money’s worth!

A well-known charter company called Sunsail, where Alec worked for a few seasons before university, had a base at the marina. We thought they might be likely to sell us a few of their older model bits of kit, so the next day we befriended the Sunsail base manager, Keith. He gave us a very good deal on a dinghy, stand up paddleboard and a new Raymarine wind display. This meant we could ditch our too-small and too-leaky old dinghy (the new one even planes!), plus the new display meant Alec could FINALLY get the wind instrument semi-functional! We can’t lie, there is more to be done, but it is working the best it ever has since we’ve had the boat! And the paddleboard gives us an amazing option for exploring the lovely places we get to visit on our travels. Keith also gave us an invaluable tip that, rather than pay to stay in the marina, we could just anchor right outside while still retaining access to its services and wifi. So we quickly moved and had the best of both worlds for the following two nights (even sneaking in for more hot showers!).

We had quite a few boat jobs on the agenda for our Dubrovnik stay, but we made sure to save a day to explore the city.  I have to admit, though, it was a bit of a let-down! The town is beautiful and incredibly well preserved (you can see why they picked it to serve as King’s Landing in Game of Thrones!), but was also completely and utterly overrun with tourists and clearly well on the way to Disneyland-esque commercialisation. We did enjoy exploring a few of the pretty back streets where people actually live and it’s less crowded, but after only a couple of hours were ready to head back. I think my mistake was in not taking the time beforehand to read more about the town and plan specific things I wanted to do. We just followed the crowds in, and so were accosted by the worst of the tourist parts. I have much still to learn about seeking out the gems in each of the places we visit!

After an early dinner at a great spot we happened by in Gruz (the part of town near the commercial port, where we’re told the locals eat out), we headed back to Serenity for an early night. It looked like the next day, Saturday, might bring the best weather window to start our two-day journey from Croatia to Corfu in Greece (passing by Montenegro and Albania), so we wanted to be up early to finish last minute jobs and have plenty of time to clear customs. This was both an exciting and slightly scary prospect – it would be our first real passage on Serenity, including two nights at sea and more than a day spent out of sight of land. But we’d been training for this for a long time, and it was time to put our money where our mouths were. So we crawled into bed about 9pm, ready to take on our first voyage out to sea. We’ll let you know how it went in next week’s post!