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| Prapratno |
The good winds enabled us to sail for more than three hours, all the way to the bay of Prapratno. There was no shortage of sailors so we parked ourselves at the bow of the boat even when it was under sail. We know what the sail and sheet would do so we had no problem with that position and our skipper knew that we knew so he was not worried at all for our safety. We assisted with jib lines positioning when a change of direction resulted in these almost getting hooked on the tender that was hitched to the deck.
The plan for that evening was a BBQ on a beach that is only reachable by sea, a short distance away from Prapratno - the Marceluti cove. The land surrounding that cove was owned by a local basketball player who was in the process of developing it into some kind of eco-resort. In Croatia, the law is that no one can own beach. As such the beach area was open to public, limited by accessibility. The fresh produce that was required for the BBQ were being brought to us by our skipper's girlfriend who happened to be available and was nice enough to do the purchasing on our behalf for us. Our skipper went to fetch supplies from shore using the tender with the boat anchored in the sheltered bay.
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| Beach on Marceluti Cove |
When the skipper was away, some of our shipmates brought out the blown up float ring. It would be fun in the water for the swimmers and floaters.
When skipper came back, the boat was motored a little way to Marceluti Cove, with our boat's tender tied to the stern. It was decided that there would be an advance party to go on shore to gather firewood and start the BBQ fire. The couple and we elected to be in that first party as the maximum number of people that would be fit on the tender was 4. No sooner had we boarded the tender with all the required supplies for the initial action that the engine of the tender spluttered when we were some 100m away from our anchored boat. The skipper tried to restart the engine without much success. As he took the cover off to check and clean the mechanism, we drifted back to the boat. Our skipper paddled some, and we were pulled back to the boat. For the next 1.5 hrs, he took the engine apart, cleaned the carburetor, checked and primed fuel lines, cleaned spark plugs several time, aired out the engine ... and each time the engine would start and spluttered to death after less than a minute ... the entire time with 8 pairs of eyes on him and not a few suggestions of what to check next. Finally, it looked like it would stay alive for a while so the initial party re-boarded and we started towards shore. This time it took us 2/3 of the way before it spluttered to death again. Our valiant skipper rowed the rest of the way ashore .... and then he rowed back to the boat. This was no small distance and we wondered what the proceedings for the evening would be.
Photos of sunset in Marceluti cove, BBQ and events of that evening can be found here :
We gathered firewood and pine cones to start a fire. Dried pine cones make good kindling as they are full of oil. We noticed some paw prints, but did not think
much of them, dismissing them as pet dogs that had probably visited the beach earlier. Later, our shipmate would take note of them as well as their relative larger sizes. Our skipper said that they probably belonged to coyotes. Hmmm … he said there were wild boars in these wilderness too. As a young adult, he had been there with his friends many times before for overnight camps.
As we prepared the fire, our skipper rowed the next party of 3 ashore. It was an awkward maneuver, as there was not really sufficient space for him to leverage the paddles. He then rowed back to shore for the final two of the party. Then he proceeded to cook the bbq over the campfire for us. We sat around, chatting, eating, drinking and enjoying the fire. We took some action photos. It was nice to just sit out there on sarongs or a log digging our feet into the sand, away from all of humanity, and in the company of nature ... we soaked up our night of not being in a marina on this voyage.
The first landing party was also the first to leave the shore party. Luckily for our skipper, the tender's engine roared to life as he tried to start it. And it held for the trip to the boat as well as for the trip back to the beach for him. No one could explain why the outboard engine had behaved in such a weird manner. We were wondering earlier how he was going to cope with rowing us back and how we would cope with rowing ourselves back. But it was a question that we were happy not to have to answer.
Two more left the shore a little while later, leaving the final 4 on shore to tend to the fire. It had to burn out and then be doused to ensure that it would not become a fire hazard. They probably stayed there until close to 3 am as our cabin mate was among the final party. We had glanced at our watch as she woke us up momentarily when she climbed into the bunk above us.
3 June
Waking up at dawn on a boat at anchor to listen to the birds and
seagulls and the yelp of a lone coyote was great.
The air was a little nippy and wet. No one else awoke for a while which was a luxurious treat for us. The whole scene reminded us of those days at anchor in Phuket or somewhere along the Strait of Malacca –
Langkawi and Port Klang. We half expected to see dolphins at our bow, although that was unlikely as we were not underway and it was probably not all that deep there. Alcohol consumption brought out some of the ugliest sides of some of our ship mates whose snore echoed through the boat. It sounded like a helicopter was hovering somewhere close.
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| The Marceluti cove the morning after - the remnants of the fire the night before can only be faintly observed if one look carefully for it towards the left |
After a relatively late breakfast on board, we motored to the island of Sipan, the largest of the Elaphati islands.
We had an option to either stop somewhere for a swim or visit this island. Some wanted to just hang out and swim while others wanted to visit the island so the skipper sailed us to the port of Sipan on the island.
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| Sipan of the Elaphati islands |
We had a pleasant chat with the folks who occupied the boat next to us. On the island, who would we find but Annemette and her family, again!. It looked like they were mapping the same areas as us, although they were on bare boat charter as her husband is an experienced sailor. Like us, they were scheduled to go into the port of Dubrovnik later that afternoon. We found them at the church on top of the hill where we had gone to explore upon landing in Sipan. Later we spied our skipper having coffee at one of the cafe and proceeded to join him. We have not seen any of our shipmates since landing.
The owner of the cafe refused to take our payment for the coffee. That was nice of him. And then when we got back to the boat, the folks from our neighbouring boat whom we had chatted with earlier gave us a crate of strawberries to share with our ship mates. All that from the locals for just a smile and cheerful chat? Wow, the folks on this island are really really nice. One of our shipmate in her usual negative attitude asked if we had washed those strawberries before we shared them. Whoa. Not everyone is that germaphobic!!
To cater to all the earlier requests, instead of sailing, our skipper made the decision to motor and anchored briefly in a sheltered cove for a last chance swim just before entering the waterway to head to marina at Dubrovnik. We jumped into the relatively warm water and swam a full circle around our boat. As we pulled out of port at Sipan, we noted that the skipper for the G Adventure boat which had been moored next to us in Split was motoring his boat alone.
He had apparently dropped his crew off to walk across the island to where he would pick them up. We were in sympathy with him as we had noticed his entire female crew did not help with the lines or the fender that morning that they were pulling out of a very busy marina on Korcula. We wondered what the group dynamics on that boat had been. As we sailed towards the swim anchorage, we encountered yet another a pod of bottle nose dolphins. We waved good bye to them and thanked them for gracing the final day of our voyage.
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| G Adventure boat |
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| One of those all inclusive resorts |
When we tried to up anchor at our swim spot, we found that it had sticky mud all over it. This was the first time in the voyage that so much mud was attached to our anchor. We had to shake it a few times to dislodge the ultra clingy mud and sea weed mix. Motoring towards the mouth of the channel that would lead us to our destination, we sailed past all the new large hotel development that would serve the tourist industry in the future. We heard that Croatia was going the same direction as Turkey and other Mediterranean destinations - the "all-inclusive resorts" that provide all the services - so that a visitor would not have to leave the resort premises at all throughout the holiday. We are not sure that we like that idea. An important part of travelling is the experience of encounters with the real local folks. It is clear that this part of the experience would be highly diminished in these resorts. It would, however, contribute to the local economy greatly. The question is how sustainable are these resorts as visitors to these are often looking for the next newer or fancier resort.
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| Karaka |
Enroute, we also encountered the Karaka, a replica of a 16th Century ship from the Republic of Dubrovnik era. It is an impressive ship to encounter at sea. The only thing that would have made it even more impressive would be if that ship had been underway under sails.
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| Entrance to the channel to the marina |
Motoring up the channel to get to ACI Marina of Dubrovnik located at the end of the channel, we passed under a majestic bridge at the entrance of the channel. We also past the cruise ship harbour. We had not known then but our quarters for our Dubrovnik stay would be located actually in one of those buildings up the hill overlooking the cruise harbour. There was a long queue of boats all heading in the same direction as us at that time of the afternoon. We had been informed that the boat had to be in place on the berth before 3pm to preserve our reservation. There was a feeling of finality about that last leg of our voyage. It had been a
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| Section of marina for our class of sailboat |
We could not help but did some analysis of our voyage. Although a pleasant enough experience, if we were to do such a voyage again, we would get together 7 other of our friends who love sailing and nature, and who would have no issue with so little space. And we would pick a time of the year when the winds would be more favourable to sailing or a voyage among the islands that better suit the winds (so that we would not have to motor as much). There was also the option of the high speed ferry services which plied between these islands for those who would rather motor than sail. The determining question being : which do you rather be doing - sailing or exploring at your destinations?
The decision for dinner that final evening was to cook on board our leftover supplies. Gruz, where the marina is located is also some distance from the old city (or for that matter the new city) of Dubrovnik. Transportation would be required for Dubrovnik. We all had also decided that it would also be a good thing to do for our final together as a group. There was also a grocery shop in the marina so what we did not have, we managed to get there. A dinner was made by some of our shipmates and it was thoroughly enjoyed. Since this was our skipper's home base, he disappeared on us shortly after dinner. Who could blame him! He would have to start the voyage in the other direction the next day.
There are multiple shower and bathroom facilities scattered throughout various sections at this marina. These were clean with good supply of hot water. We took advantage of these to prepare for our return to "civilisation" the next day. We noted that there were also historical buildings that looked like they were accessible from the marina which we may try to check out in the morning before our scheduled departure. There were also multiple cafes located on the marina.
4 June
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| Old looking sculpture on wall of a marina building |
Our final morning at the marina was spent exploring the marina grounds. We went to check out the marina buildings which appeared to be of historic nature although we could not be sure that they were as old as they looked. The marina looked better at sunrise than at sunset.
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| Marina in the morning |
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| The swifts |
Our skipper arranged for a "shuttle" for us - a minibus taxi took all of us to each of our respective hotels for 25 Kunas (~5 AUD) a piece. We all squeezed into the mini bus. We would be the first to be dropped off as ours was the nearest to the marina. Our driver spoke German, Russian and Croatian. There had been a long history of German tourists to this area. He spoke no English. German was useful since the instructions for locating our accommodation as provided by "our host" was a little lengthy.
Footnote : One thing to note is that although our tour originally said that we would stay out of the Dubrovnik marina and attempt to enter it on the morning we were scheduled to disembark, that final detail is often not complied with. It would be way too difficult to find a berth spot in high season in the morning for disembarkation as no one would have cast off from the previous night. As such an 8 day voyage is in reality only a 7 day voyage.
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