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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