We left Vieste as planned and had great conditions to sail across to Croatia, nearly flat seas and around 12-15knts of wind on the beam meant we covered the 60nm in about 9hrs and nearly all under sail. We tied up to the Customs Quay at Ubli on Lastovo to find the place like a ghost town, Harbourmaster and Police Post all deserted, apparently they might open at around 5pm!!
By 6pm still no sign of any officials so we spoke to the Park Ranger who rang the Harbourmaster, he appeared about 15mins later and could not have been more friendly and helpful. Completed the check-in and relieved us of about €250 for our Cruising Permit and Navigation Taxes, this covers us for the rest of the year. The Policeman arrived 1/2 hr later to check our passports and crew list, again very friendly and efficient.
Now all legal it was back to the boat for dinner and welcome to Croatia drinks. We stayed on the Town Quay for the night, apparently they can’t charge you here even though the whole Island is a Nature Park that you have to pay to enter.
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| Approaching Ubli, Lastovo | Vela Luka, Korcula |
So the plan now was to head North through the Islands of Croatia and up to the Istrian Peninsula before crossing to Venice. Although we did not have too much time to explore and the hiking has been abandoned for a while, we only had to travel fairly short distances between lovely anchorages and Islands. We headed into Split for supplies and found Lidl only 10mins walk away from the anchorage so stocks were properly replenished with our shopping trolley, rucksacks and bags well loaded. Prices overall seemed a bit cheaper than Greece, especially booze.
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| Marinkovac, Pakleni Islands | Sunset at Banovi |
We headed towards Murter with more quiet, calm anchorages on the way. Murter is joined to the mainland by a lifting bridge that opens twice a day and saves a good few miles compared to going around the West side of the Island. However the approach is quite shallow with only 2m of water meaning we had around 0.5m of clearance underneath us, the bridge is only about 10-12m wide so we had a couple of metres each side as we squeezed through, fortunately it was a lovely calm morning so it was not too scary.
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| Approach to Murter Bridge | We Just Squeezed Through! |
In Murter Harbour or Hramina we met up with Nick and Dave on Imagine, old friends from Holyhead that we have not seen for a good few years. BBQ and Beers to catch up with all the gossip from back home, great fun.
Northwards again with a few more stops before getting to Porec about half way up the Istrian peninsula, our jump-off point for Venice. Along the way we had a bit of an argument with a mooring buoy fee collector in Susak harbour, he insisted we could not anchor in the Bay even though we were over 150m from his buoys. His reason was that it was now illegal to anchor because the mussels in the Bay were protected, after pointing out that Google Earth showed at least 20 boats anchored last summer and refusing to move he got a bit upset and said he would bring the Police. We told him if the Police asked us to move we would do so, otherwise we were staying. When Police or Harbourmaster showed no interest in the problem it was clear he was just making up rules to try and force us to pay around 360 kuna (€45) to use his buoys!! Have to say that everyone we have met in Croatia has been friendly and helpful but these fee collectors have a bit of a reputation for “trying it on”.
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| Burano Square and Leaning Tower | Main Street, Burano! |
We checked out of Porec and crossed to Venice, didn’t attempt fishing as there was so much rubbish floating around. A pretty good trip over, we had about 15knts of wind and managed to sail over half the way over before the wind died away. Anchored off Burano which is a really beautiful and quirky place. All the houses are painted different colours and apparantly you have to obtain permission to change their colour. They still ring the bells everday in the leaning tower, It looks as if it is going to topple over soon!!
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| Sue’s New Friend | Lovely Gardens on Burano |
So our first day we spent exploring Burano, first along the canals in the dinghy then on foot. In the park there were a lot of sculptures on display, really unusual and so nice to see them displayed out in the open. I could just see this happening in the UK, NOT!! Everyone here seems to be really into looking after their gardens, some stunning arrays of flowers.
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| Rialto Bridge | Nearly Empty St Mark’s Square |
We then caught the 7am Vapareto into Venice to try and do some exploring before all the crowds arrived. It was worth the early start to stand on the Rialto bridge on our own and see St Marks Square deserted!! By mid morning it was heaving with people.
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| St Mark’s Cathedral | Grand Canal Monument |
The Cathedral didn’t open until 9.45 but the queue started at 8.30!! Their were lots of armed guards patrolling up and down. No photos were allowed in the Cathedral which is a shame but totally understandable.Very beautiful and ornate, i always wonder how many people it took to create those amazing mosaics. We wandered around Venice for the day criss crossing over its many canals. Watchng the Vaparetos zooming up and down made us think they are like the tube trains in London only on water!! So many people hopping on and off. Then in amongst them are the many Gondolas and delivery boats, even the odd ambulance.
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| Venice Rowing Regatta | Venice Rowing Regatta |
Trust us to pick one of the busiest times to visit Venice and Burano, turns out it was a huge Rowing Regata weekend with Sunday being the big day. Hundreds of boats and people turned out for it, from big Gondolas to Paddle Boards!! It was just like watching the London Marathon only on water with a paddle!! They had to paddle 12 miles from Venice out around the islands and back to Venice.
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| Thunderstorm Heading Our Way | An Hour Later |
The return trip from Venice to Porec was a bit windy and rough, we left Venice in calm conditions with the wind forecast to increase to 15-20knts. We ended up with 25-30knts and horrible mixed up lumpy sea state so it was a bumpy trip, at times we had two reefs in the main and only a scrap of headsail out. The only good thing was that it meant we sailed over 2/3rds of the trip so didn’t use much diesel. Needed a couple of attempts to get secured alongside the Customs Quay in Porec because of the wind but then had a very friendly Policeman check us back into Croatia.
Then the next day we went down to a lovely anchorage near Vrsar where we experienced our first Croatian thunderstorm. Luckily we only caught the tail end of it and the rain washed the boat off nicely. The pictures above show individual lightning strikes with the white being very recent and the red being older, as it shows it was a pretty intense storm but we were lucky enough to be in the narrow gap between the two systems so we missed the worst of it. You can also see that the storm moved over 30 miles South in less than an hour!!
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| Moonrise, Uvala Soline, Pula | Calm Evening, Soline, Pula |
We are now anchored in Soline having a few relaxing days before going into Pula to top up on internet and of course the mandatory stock up in Lidls!!
