We left our little anchorage at 0830, as the wind which had been offshore, was building from the SE, and so the strain was coming on our casually laid kedge with no chain to help it. The light wind fizzled out, and we decided to find an anchorage amongst the Pakleni islands. We were there in time to enjoy a dip before lunch, after which we enjoyed a zizz...... After that, we launched the dinghy and set off across the intervening channel to the harbour and island of Havr. A cruise ship, The World out of Nassau, had anchored in front of the town, and it resembled a very large block of flats. We counted 7 stories of accomodation decks above the water line, plus at least two that were clearly public rooms, restaurants, etc. Five of the decks had balconies for each suite, and we counted 15 of these along the sides, and more across the stern. She was huge! On the way in we collected some fuel for the outboard.
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We left the anchorage at O. Marinkovak at 1100, having had a leisurely start and a swim. The wind had still not picked up at all, so we motored out. The cruise liner was still there, with her tenders buzzing back and forth. The wind did fill in eventually, but very light and from behind. Our original objective, Rogoznica, was a little too far, so we settled for Otok Drvenik, a small island with a harbour. We entered the harbour, which was quite pretty, intending to anchor but found that we really needed to lie to one of the piers. We are still a bit shy of this procedure, and not really wanting to go ashore for any reason, we elected to return to Uvula Mala Luka, a bay which we had passed on the way in. This was described in the pilot and shown on the chart as having a rather smelly fish farm. Of this there was no sign, although there was an unmarked net which we were told by another boat lay across one corner of one arm of the bay. We anchored in 10m. and worried a bit about swinging room, but there was in fact no problem, although we did not get the Rocna to dig in as convincingly as it usually does.
We recovered the dinghy and prepared to move off promptly after breakfast. Initially our intention was to call for fuel at the marina at Rogoznica, near which we had planned to spend a night but for our slower than anticipated progress up the coast. However, having sufficient fuel we thought fuel in Sibenik would probably be cheaper, so set a course to go direct rather than divert. This was a series of hops around headlands and islands, all of which were steep-to so we rounded them at a couple of cables, typically in 90m of water. There was no useable wind at first, light and directly behind us. In the middle of the morning, however, it freshened and we were able to enjoy a sail through to the entrance up river to Sibenik, when we dropped our sails.
The channel up to Sibenik is short but very attractive, and is used by large coasters. Just inside to starboard, past the fort, there were a couple of deep inlets with low banks that might provide an anchorage. Further on, the banks on both sides were rocky. The river emerges into a wide lake, across which lies the town of Sibenik. We could not see the fuel berth at first, and one of the pilots left us in some doubt as to its existence. However, we located it where it should have been, immediately to the east of the ferry pier, hidden behind a large Italian motor cruiser. We waited there in line, with stories of 'half an hour' as he filled his tanks and perhaps his bilges too! In the end we managed to walk Fuga up behind him close, so that a fuel line would reach our filler. He was still there long after we had berthed off the quay. The fuel berth credit card machine was not working, so it cleaned us out of cash, and in the case of our friend, probably the bank as well! There was plenty of room on the quay for the handful of mainly charter boats that moored up with us.
John was having problems sending messages with the new Croatian SIM card, and attempts to recover mail in the islands had been unsuccessful. We had gleaned that there were 26 messages in the queue, but had only received the first few before some large attachment had blocked it. The dial up mobile link was simply not good enough to deal with the attachments that were blocking it. In addition, we were not too sure of our cash position at the bank, as we had had to pay cash for the batteries and generator spare, as well as the cruising permit on arrival here. We hoped to find an internet cafe to clear some of these problems.
We found our way into the old town, which contains a network of narrow streets with steps and polished cobbles, and immediately stumbled on a (very reasonable) internet shop. Everywhere there are small shops, pavement cafe's and restaurants, and small squares outside significant buildings. There are a number of these, including a large cathedral (rather sombre inside with its granite columns and arched roof), but with attractively carved doorways, and a frieze of carved heads on the north east corner. We followed signs up to the castle, but found it about to close (at 1900) so settled for a ramble around the cemetry below it instead. After that, we discovered the Castello bar that had been recommended by the cheerful mooring man as having internet facilities. We had a drink there, then retraced our steps to one of the pavement restaurants where we enjoyed a large plate of meat with chips and veg: not exactly cordon bleu, we reflected, but washed down with plenty of wine and water, who cares? Very reasonable at 270 Kuna (25 GBP).
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We had a surprisingly quiet night off the quay. One other yacht had an accordion out during the evening, but that had not disturbed us. John was despatched to sort out our internet problems, so went to the cafe with wifi. Connecting to the router was no problem, but onwards to the internet was. The girl serving there seemed to be not too interested in re-booting the router. Maybe language was the problem. So the coffee (first 15 minutes internet free) at first seemed expensive at 5 kuna, but was delicious. Translated to under 50 pence GBP it also seemed not unreasonable, and she was pretty. At the internet shop, discovered yesterday evening with daughter in charge, father was there but he would not connect the laptop to his network. He offered to burn a disc with the attachments, but in the end John had a look at the mail, and thought he had archived it and rendered those with attachments harmless. In search of bread (at the supermarket found yesterday) he stumbled on a street market around the back of some side streets in the newer part of town. Some cherries, peaches, tomatoes, and cucumbers all amounted to 31 kuna or 3 GBP! There was bread there too. Next he went in search of the Yamaha shop (motorbikes as well as outboards - but no baby grand, behind the bus station), to replace the leaking stinking outboard fuel line connector. While in pursuit of this objective, he made enquiries at a fishing shop, so returned there to replace the lure that we had overrun on the crossing from Italy. Returning to the boat with all this booty, John found Mo stripped for action. Or rather, he had to wait for the ladder/passerelle to be lowered while she put some clothes on: she had been giving the stove a clean and polish. John was despatched again to the Inox shop to get some bolts for the replacement passerelle wheels, but while there he enquired about some pre-stretched 10 mm rope for the topping lift, which has frayed at the masthead sheave. Rope is sold by weight, not length, here. The bolts, nuts and washers with 40 metres of 10mm rope cost the equivalent of just over £15 GBP!
John soon discovered that despite his efforts at the internet shop to archive the offending items, Gmail still wanted to download the post with attachments. The phone then gave up, and it became clear that we no longer had any credit left on the phone. It has now gone through the original 100 kuna, two more 100 kuna top ups, and wants more! The last of the top-ups had not appeared to 'take' and the balance was not updated. (It had come through when we checked later in the day).
We set off, taking some video and photos of the townscape as we did so. There was a pleasant breeze, and we made sail once out of the narrows. We then had a close fetch to make our way between two islands, after which our course freed off and we made fast progress. It gave us considerable satisfaction to leave a large Beneteau well behind: we had been making on him slowly under autopilot, but found that when John took it off the pilot we made another third of a knot or more: it must have been the expert helmsmanship. Our original objective had been to go around to the north of Murter to find shelter there, but when progress had been so good we thought maybe we would stretch it a bit. However as the wind died away in the evening and came around behind us, fatigue and boredom set in, so we picked out an alternative anchorage off Vrgrada. As it happened, this gave us our first sight of what might be a sandy beach in Croatia - although we did not go ashore to confirm. The small beach is below a small outcrop of red sandstone, alone amongst all the limestone.
We set off in the morning with the intention of going to an anchorage at the north of O. Ungljan, as this would put us in a good position to get to Zadar. The islands mostly lie NW/SE, with narrow channels between them. Ungljan and Pasman together are 24 miles long, and the channel between them is bridged with only 16m airdraft, enough for ferries and smaller yachts, but not for Fuga. With SE wind, we found ourselves gybing down one of these channels, dodging flotillas beating up in the opposite direction. So having passed Pasman to the west, as it was navigationally simpler, we took advantage of a larger gap between islands and ran across to Dugi Otok, where we anchored off Luka. John had been up with the early morning mosquito at daybreak, and felt particularly knackered, so after lunch and a glass or two we settled down to read and sleep!
Still twitching, John later fired up the computer, knowing that he had 100 kuna now in credit on the phone, and connected using GPRS. Down came 15 e-mails quite quickly, complete with attachments, before it seized up again. The reason for the sizure was that the balance was now approaching zero! Our final 100 kuna top up, John connected via dial up, and an agonising time later, one e-mail came in with photos (thank you, Lisa), but this was followed by a total seizure. Disconnecting in frustration, 80 more kunas had disappeared! We now have to keep that for texts etc. to effect a link up with Peter and family, so hands off until we find an effective wifi connection to clear the problem. Oh to be in Italy with our TIM Maxi-web service. This is VIP, and allied to Vodafone, who do have a similar concession in Italy, but first speak the language and read the booklet that comes with the SIM card!
The wind was fresh as we had rounded into the bay, but died down later. However, it was overcast and the water temperature had dropped back to a chilly 22 degrees. Disappointing having registered over 25 degrees on the way from Sibenik. Neither of us swam, and we did not launch the dinghy to go ashore.
It was flat calm as we set off from our anchorage, so we had to motor. We headed north around the island of Rava and as we approached the top a very light breeze set in. We were in no hurry, so we set sail and started to sail slowly into it, tacking close in to the shore of Dugi Otok so we could clear a marked hazaard. This revealed two more pleasant anchorages on Gugi Otok, U Lucina and U Brbinj. Our original intenton was to anchor off Ugljan in the channel at U Muline, but we had second thoughts at first because it was now a lee shore. The alternative anchorage on the south side of Sestrunj did not look much fun, and as the wind was not amounting to much we reverted to plan A, and anchored close inshore off Muline in just under 4 metres. We relaxed and swam, although there was a slight current running through the channel.
We had planned to move around to an anchorage opposite Zadar, so that we could enter the marina there early the following morning, but as we were enjoying our current anchorage we stayed put. We spent the day clearing the aft cabin of bicycles, sewing machine, printer, cameras and booze, and airing the squabs and bedding in preparation for the arrival of our visitors.
We arrived at Zadar at 1000 hrs, having had to do this morning all the jobs that we said we might tackle the previous evening, like recover the dinghy. The grape and chess had intervened! Having had a couple of chats with fellow CA members, we registered with the marina. I discovered that there was wifi at the marina, but it seemed to be worth swapping to T-mobile. We set off to find the T-mobile shop with directions from the guy in the marina office. Once there we found they were operating a ticket queing system, but while we were waiting we talked to a phone demo girl who was hanging around with not much to do. We found that a pay as you go account, which they call Simpla, did not after all offer the advantages of 15 minute access segments, so we were not much better off than using the credit card access method instead. We aborted, but very hot, went and found somewhere to drink: a beer and a wine for 23 kunas or about 2.30 gbp. Amazing! After that we went exploring the old city for a while, before beating a retreat back to one of the supermarkets. That proved a little disappointing, particularly in the meat department, so we returned to the boat and set out again for a longer hike to the larger supermarket. It all turned out a bit of a rush, and we were late on parade for drinks on a Halberg Rassey. We returned to finalise our preparations and await the families' arrival. Their flight was delayed, and once at Zadar they decided that the taxi touts were to be avoided. Enterprisingly they caught two buses, and arrived on foot rather weary but with the satisfaction of having achieved the transfer at minimal cost! We despatched the kids to bed without too much hassle, and then had spaghetti bolognaise which Mo had prepared before getting to bed.
Our first task was to get Peter and Debbie registered with the harbour master on our crew list. My driving license had to be surrendered to the marina office in order to retrieve the Croatian documents to achieve this. We then all took the foot ferry across the harbour to the harbour office. We were not sure what the procedure was, and whether Pete and Debbie needed to be there in person, so they all came. From the number of people in the queue, and previous experience booking in, I felt we might be there some time. It was no place for two young children, and we agreed to rendezvous back at the harbour office in an hour, then if they were needed we could deal with the situation. In the event, I was seen fairly quickly, and neither crew's presence or passports were required, so I set off to try to find the family around Zadar. It was very warm and crowded, so I was unsuccessful, and forced to return to keep the rendezvous at the harbour office. After this, we visited the market and bought a large supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, and bread, which we took back across on the ferry to a grateful Mo. We still had to pay up, so I carried out this painful task. The marina is well situated, and the facilities have been upgraded and are very pleasant, but 500 Kuna is probably the most we have spent on a marina since leaving the UK? We also needed more water and milk, so Peter and Mo went off to the local supermarket for these. We topped up our water, and slipped just before the 2pm deadline. We set a course for a likely looking anchorage off Pasman Island where we arrived at about 1630, in plenty of time for a swim and a trip to the beach. Emma befriended some local ladies who gave her the shells they had collected. Tom found a starfish and some decomposing (losing their legs) dead crabs, and managed to persuade Emma to part with most of her shells. So more or less happily to bed!
We set off early in the morning, in order to make some mileage before the kids came too. There was no wind at all as we motored down the Pasmani Kanal past Pasman town itself. We noted a nice anchorage, U. Zaklopica, further south, near the bottom of the island, occupied by one boat. We crossed over to the anchorage in Uvula St. Andrija, at Otok Vrgada where Mo and I spent a night on the way up. We completed the process of coming to and having breakfast, and enjoyed a swim. Thus refreshed, we set off on another leg to a lunch stop on Murter. Uvula Kosirina proved to be a popular spot, not only with boats, but was also a campsite. Caravans, motorhomes, and tents lined the edge of the wide bay and beyond. Entertainingly, more than half the population had no clothes on. There was a small beach, and the family took the dinghy ashore although there was some concern about the sea urchin spikes. I enjoyed watching an attractive female throw sticks and balls into the water for her German shepherd dogs, then take to the water after them. Other than the dog leads, she had nothing on, and her man friend looked on with only a straw hat. The water was lovely and warm, and in the hot sunshine, maybe I had too much.
Our chosen destination for the evening was a small island, Otok Prvic, near the Sibenik river, where there was a pretty village by the harbour in Prvic Luka. We were anchored there enjoying the scenery, however, when we were approached by a boat and informed that they had introduced a charge for anchoring. It was half the mooring fee to the quay (260 Kuna - cf 220 at Sibenik town quay), but we felt 130 Kuna for nothing was over the top. Even Lord Montague doesn't charge that much! It was fortunately early enough for us to decline and move elsewhere. We motored the short distance across and into the river entrance, where there are three large bays out of the channel up which we found a most delightfully quiet spot at the head of U. Capljena to spend the evening.