My apologies! It’s been ages since I did a blog post and sent out some updates. We have been focused on spending time with our family. We had our first guests arrive in mid-July. Kivanc’s brother and his family came for a short one-week visit and stayed at an apartment nearby our home marina in Slano. After they left my brother came and stayed onboard Sea Bee with us for almost a month. Great visits with the brothers but we all agreed, moving forward, 1-2 weeks onboard is the sweet spot! Living in tight quarters on a boat day in and day out is not easy for anyone after a while. Despite some days when we all annoyed each other, it was a special time with my brother. Over the last couple of years, he and I went through many difficulties, starting with the passing of our dear mother and other challenges that followed. Therefore, it was really good for us to spend quality time together, have good conversations and make new positive memories. Croatia was the perfect place to make this happen!
While the family was in town, we did a lot of local sightseeing around Dubrovnik, southern Croatia, and sailed to the nearby islands. We did more passages and sailing trips with my brother since he was here longer. We discovered a few new spots and anchorages but we mostly revisited a number of our favorite places, which we have shared with you in our YouTube videos and previous blog posts.
At the beginning of our Croatian journey, you heard us say many times how we had Croatia to ourselves. It was an amazing and unique time because Croatia has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Once countries started rolling out their vaccination programs and travel restrictions started to lift in the UK and other European countries, the crowds arrived. The second half of July and the month of August were swelling with tourists. There wasn't one charter boat available in the whole country during this time. We knew of captains going down to Montenegro to bring sailboats into Croatia for the charter market.
In addition to the crowds, the heat also picked up in July & August. I forgot how humid the Mediterranean can be during the summer. I love hot weather and love the dry heat of California but the humidity here was so intense and being on a boat made everything extra hot. Thank goodness my brother came with a bag full of fans for the boat! Now it’s September and the crowds are leaving. The temperature is perfect – warm but without the humidity. This might be the best month to be in Croatia.
An exciting thing happened to us a couple of weeks ago. A team of journalists visiting some of the marinas were looking for interesting stories about sailors in Croatia. They heard about us from a friend and reached out to interview us. Our story and sailing adventure ended up being featured in the Jutarnjilist newspaper, which is the most popular newspaper in the country!
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We also published our 5th video on our YouTube channel. It's the first installment of a 3-part series, documenting our long passage up north and back down to southern Croatia. Now that our family has left Kivanc is back to editing videos. Look out for more videos coming out in the next few weeks.
We will finish out the 2021 sailing season in Croatia and we have some cool passages planned. We are currently looking for a good weather window to sail to the Lastovo islands. Lastovo became a protected nature park in 2006. The islands are known for their great natural beauty and the few villages there has Venetian architecture dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries. It should be a lovely place to sail and explore!
Very glad you shared the details about what slowed you down during the journey. And if I'm not mistaken, that Roman amphitheater in Pula was one of the better known coliseum arenas outside of Italy, which of course hosted all manner of gruesome entertainment. Quite a historical spot. (For anyone interested, the HBO series "Rome" is excellent and provides relevant historical context.)
I would like to hear about the hospitality or lack of it as it applies to cruising sailboats. I have read a lot of reports in recent years about locals and the government ripping off cruisers when they anchor or moor (your 150 euro a night to tie to an empty seawall was one). I am a 76 year who has been trying to buy a boat in the Med for several years but health, covid restrictions, then business has gotten in the way. Hopefully 2022 will be the year. Croatia looks beautiful and would be an ideal place to start a cruise when the Carribean is the intended final destination. Croatia is one of the few Mediterranean countries requiri…