Thursday 3 May 2012

Sail Croatia Days 3, 4 & 5


30.01.12
Another day of sitting on the deck getting brown, stopped for a swim stop in a gorgeous bay on the way to Dubrovnik, and yet another mean as lunch.
Dubrovnik is the biggest city we’ve stopped in at, all the other towns are just home to a few hundred people I’d say. Once docked we caught the bus to the Old City, lots of old buildings close together with small streets in between but no cars in the Old City itself, I guess when it was built they only had horse and cart so it was pretty small. We stopped for an ice cream and got 50% for being with the boat, the guy behind the counter asked where I was from and then proceeded to start showing me his Maori language skills, funny hearing it in a Croatian accent.
Walked around the city and got lost trying to find the bar they have on the outside of the city walls by the sea, once there though we had a lemon beer and headed back to the boat to get ready to go out later.
We went to a Bosnian restaurant for dinner, was so good to have whole veggies, we ordered a meat platter and a veggie platter, so so yum.
We headed to the Skybar afterwards, were we got cheap drinks again for being on the boat, we proceeded to drink a lot more than we had initially imagined, a round of shots bought by everyone, mojitos, jagerbombs and grappa.
Leon, the class clown of the boat has been completely out of sync with the rest of the boat in regards to drinking, the first 2 days he drunk solid so he was MIA tonight.
Once we had all felt that we had had enough, we began the mission back to the Lopar, first mission…to navigate our way through the streets of the Old City. This was the best part of the night, Michael disappeared for a few minutes then next thing he is running through the streets naked, Alex is falling over everywhere, so much so that we all decided to join her on the ground for a while & Andrew and I played rugby with his jandal.
Caught a taxi back as we were too late for the buses, Alex is only little and drunk the same amount we did so she was affected a little more than us, luck she had her bro with her to fireman lift her out of the bushes and to the boat.
Our boat was docked 4 boats wide on the dock, so to get to ours we had to walk around the edge of each boat then step over the gap between each gangway, we all cheered when Alex made it back safely. The boat right next to ours was one like the Lopar except filled with oldies, as we walked around the bow of the boat there was a large bell, of which Andrew could not walk past without giving it one good ring, we all scarpered at that point.
Back on the boat El Capitan as we call him, Nikola is his real name, was up and about with some other crew, he wasn’t allowed to open the bar but gave us all waters to start with, proceeded by beer in a milk bottle. We got some music going and carried on until our hostess came round and gave us a wee telling off for being loud after 12am, so we all sloped off to bed, awesome night.

01.05.2012
Not surprisingly I missed breakfast today, has a great sleep in and then an awesome swim stop. We pulled into yet another gorgeous bay and jumped in, some people had bought inflatable recliners so were chilling on them, I just swum around everyone and the water was real nice. Everyday the water is getting a little bit warmer, the top few inches is always lovely but you get some freezing currents that come past you every now and then but it’s still so great to be swimming in the sea like that and not having to worry about sharks.
I would not want to come on Sail Croatia in the middle of summer, every night instead of 4 boats docked there are 20, it’s twice the price and twice the temperature. Our cabins are hot to sleep in at the moment and it’s only the start of the season, the temperature is sitting in the mid to late twenties so it’s not super hot during the day but just lovely, the water temperature is fine to swim in, and it’s not crowded, so if you are ever thinking of doing it which is a definite must do, come at the start, heaps better.
We docked into an island and here we hired bikes and rode into the national park. Cost us 40 kuna an hour to hire the bikes, so we got 2 hrs, then it cost us 90 kuna to get into the national park. In the middle of the national park are these salt water lakes, they are just sea water and are tidal but they are surrounded by hills and bushlands. We rode to a bay where there is an island in the middle with an old monastery on it, the water is so blue and the surroundings were so serene. We all got straight in the water and chilled out there for an hour or so, then started riding back, on the way we were told to stop at a place where the tidal water flows from one lake to the other and to jump in there and be taken through with the current.
We got there and there was a little bridge and a channel that was about 20m long and 2.5m wide and water flowing from one lake to the other at a great speed of walking pace, not very impressed we still jumped in to say that we had done it.
Rode back to the harbor and we were about 25minutes over our 2 hours so the guy charged us for it, thought that was a bit stink, in NZ they would have said not to worry about it.
We found out that there was free wifi at a hotel on the waterfront, so we all took our phones and laptops for a drink there but although we could connect the service was terrible and we could barely do anything so it got real frustrating and in the end we left to get some dinner.
Headed down the road a few doors to a seafood restaurant, Alex & I got the seafood risotto and the seafood spaghetti and swapped half way, was so delicious. We had seen some guys having pancakes for dessert so we ordered them next, one set came out for Alex, then nothing for about 15mins, then another 2 sets came out (cold), then another 10 minutes later the last set came out (cold again), so a bit of a disappointment to the end of a great meal but we still got a laugh out of it.
Once back on board we had a couple of drinks, El Capitan had had a few too and started getting the music going quite loud and was dancing some salsa in the aisle of the dining area with Tommo, then I joined in and did some with the Captain.
We retired fairly early as we had heard that the next place we are heading is rather lively so need to prepare for that.

02.05.2012
Today was spent sunbathing, reading the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy now that Andrew had finally finished it and going swimming. The Hunger Games is sweeping through the boat, I’ve read the first book in just over a day and have been painfully waiting for Andrew to finish the second one before I can get into it, now I have Lucy who is a speed reader demon on my back about finishing the second one as she has just finished the first.
The water was way colder at our swim stop today, water was quite a bit deeper though, so we got the lilos out and floated around in them for 45mins or so before continuing sunning ourselves on the deck.
I successfully attached my NZ flag to the mast of the boat with the help of sellotape, it flies pretty well considering, and love it that most people on the boat are from Oz.
My tan is coming along very nicely, think I’m the only one not to have any sunburn so far out of the 25 people on the boat, but in saying that I have nearly gone through a whole bottle of sunscreen in the past few days.
We are in Korcula tonight, we were told that we were stopping in this town and it was going to be a very happening place, including a bar that had a pool in it, we were most disappointed on realisation that it was just Innes’ accent and she really meant a pole in it.
Dinner this evening was pizza, it was so good, I got a prosciutto pizza with sour cream & mushrooms. With full bellies we retired to the boat for a few hours then headed out to this bar with the pole, not quite as happening as I thought it to be, so after a drink I headed back to the boat and left the others to it.
One of the girls on the boat got taken to hospital today with food poisoning, they reckon it was something she ate at a restaurant last night the poor thing, last thing you want on a trip like this!
Starting to get a thick feeling in my throat, hopefully it doesn’t turn into a sore throat, so hitting the hay to try and sleep it off.

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