Thesee on tour around Brac

Thésée on tour around Brac

Monday 26th July... Linda - Twas a little bit rolly early this morning around 3am and we were awake. I prefer to get up and keep watch. There's no point lying awake in bed swaying side to side, so I sit up and look our of the window until my eyes get tired then go back to bed. Fortunately the lovely superyacht neighbour had his underwater lights twinkling and the water was all lit up light blue, which made it feel very calming. To be honest, the water was flat with just a small amount of gentle swell coming in. 

Thankyou for twinkling during the night

Today was supposed to be the windiest day, but we were so well sheltered it was hard to believe. New boats came in, first this huge wooden thing berthed to our port side. Then an even bigger white one berthed next to him. You can tell we are near to Split, with all these large vessels. A bit like being in Palma, Majorca. 

First new boat in this morning

Now the two new boats

We wanted to move on and thought we should get a move on before we got penned in by everyone else. So off we went only a couple of miles north, still on the west coast of Brac. We got to our first choice anchorage at Bobovisce but it was gusting hard over 20 knots, so we moved further north to Uvala Stiniva and anchored stern to. It's real nice, nothing here, just peace and a few more yachts. Then a biggie superyacht came in. This one called 'Love Story'. It's amazing how the crew can manoevre them into small spaces. 

'Love Story' reversing into the bay

Settled in

Dean had a good paddleboard around, and then we went together. It's so hot at the moment. At least 33 degrees inside the boat. I've actually been in the water three times today to cool off. I was so brave, I swam around the boat all on my own without my float aid. It's not that I don't like swimming, I just don't like the thought of fish around me. The water here is crystal clear so I could have a good look to see the coast was clear before getting in. Also, I've promised Charlie I would practise my swimming skills by the time he gets here next week.

Knackered after my circumnavigation of Thesee

The big superyacht left this evening, and now we just have a handful of yachts scattered about, how peaceful. I took a photo of the trees because there are so many different varieties.

A lovely evening

The trees behind us

Tuesday 27th July... Linda - Uvala Stiniva is lovely but the ferry wash from out in the bay still rolls in and wobbles us around. First wobble 7am. We are on tour, so we moved on anyway, around the north west corner of Brac and along the north coast. The slight wind forecast from the south turned out to be 15 knots from the east, so we were heading into it. 

We took a quick look at the bay at Supetar. The ferry comes in here too and there's not much room to anchor as the swimming area and buoys take up most of the bay. We almost dropped the hook but then I could see a tyre on the seabed. You don't want your anchor dropping on that so we changed our minds. There looked like there was a quay but it was completely empty and we were purplexed as to whether it was a visitors quay or not. So we carried on to Splitska. The coastline is quite nice, fairly flat but very green and pleasant with some lovely little towns here and there.

Nearing Supetar

Not sure what this was, possibly a cemetary?

We could see supermarkets too, but nowhere

to moor and spend money unfortunately.

At Splitska there are two inlets, both deep. The shallows towards the edges were taken up with buoys for boats max 12 metres, no good for us. We checked the west side inlet but again the shallows taken up with a very large swimming area. At the third attempt at anchoring we had to drop the hook in 16 metres of water, normally we like about 5 metres. It was quite ridiculous as the swimming area was empty, but everyone was swimming in the anchorage and we had to dodge a number of people including children on blow up toys. 

We finally settled in after about two hours and went ashore. It's only a small town but very nice except the bars advertise cider but don't actually have any (again).  They talked me into having what turned out to be 4% alcohol sparkling water cranberry flavour. Think i'll give that a miss next time. The waitress was very nice and friendly though.

Quayside in Splitska

White stone roof

My favourite, the bell tower

The bar we (I) chose

My alcoholic water ??

Looks interesting, but whatever it is, the waitress

said it's no longer there

Wednesday 28th July... Linda - It feels like a long day. We were up well before 7am and by 8am had been ashore and done a legacy walk across the headland to the beach at the west inlet at Splitska. It was a very nice walk with good views.

Going up

Super houses and flowers

Down the track to the beach

Here's the beach (stony as usual)

Lovely clear water

More nice modern residences

It's that boat again... Love Story

9am Thesee was on the move to our next stopover. We'd heard that Postira was lovely so we stuck our noses into the harbour. Indeed it looked lovely but there was no anchoring and we didn't want to be stuck on a hot pontoon. Also, a massive block of apartments/hotel was being built and looked a bit of an eyesore for the town. We carried on to the anchorage at Lovrecina. Wow and double wow. It was gorgeous. Nothing here except 'the first sandy beach we've found in Croatia', beautiful green surroundings, one bar/restaurant, and magnificent clear water. Lots of people swimming in the swimming area, lots of local and rental boats, and a big wooden gulet yacht, which we anchored near to but far enough away from, lol. It's a stunning anchorage, I'm not surprised it's so popular.

First glimpse of Lovrecina

Some ruins of an old batista

Dean paddle-boarding

The big wooden gulet 

We had a great day watching all the goings on, oh and I mustn't forget how industrious Dean was today. He put his diving cylinder on and scrubbed a lot of Thesee's bottom, snorkelled the anchor a couple of times, paddle-boarded the anchorage twice, and rowed us ashore tonight for our second legacy walk of the day.

Ashore tonight in Lovrecina

All the crowds gone home

The lonesome Thesee tonight

Pretty pink flowers

Back to the dinghy before darkness falls

Thursday 29th July... Linda - Early morning walk before it got toooooo hot again. The morning was just quite beautiful. We were the only boat, the sea flat as a pancake. The most perfect place to wake up to. We had only taken a few steps ashore when we saw the sign for the Basilica ruins. We had assumed that it wasn't accessible as we had seen no-one around it. We took a look. It explained quite a lot as it is named the Basilica of St Lawrence, hence this place name Lovrecina (a nod to St Lawrence).

Let's take a look

Just a few steps away

Built in the 5th Century

Amazing that it still stands

What's through here?

Apparantly this is the baptismal font

Not sure I should be sitting in it.

Looks more like a Roman Bath

Inscriptions preserved on the walls

Outside, this looks like some kind of 

treasure trail puzzle piece

Then off for our short walk around the headland. It was just idyllic. We came across a cockrell and some chickens. The cockrell decided to let the whole world know we were looking at him by giving out large crowing noises.

Strolling along

Stop your car and sleep

Noisy 

Back to base. It was so peaceful and calm I jumped on the paddle-board for the first time this season, before boats started arriving and making waves. I felt very confident with my balancing and put my success down to being used to constant boat movements living on Thesee.

Getting my confidence

There, easy peasy

No stopping me now

So after my little play about, it was still only 8.45am. It was the ideal opportunity for Dean to get his dive gear on again and finish scrubbing Thesee's bottom. During this scrubbing activity, his hand held sucker broke into two. So now he only has half of one. We'll have to get the dive cylinder filled up again when we can. But Thesee should stay clean until we can take him out of the water for winter.

Good job Dean 

Oops, malfunction

The mad rush of boats arriving never happened. It was quite strange as today there were no motor boats, about 6 sailboats, and the few day tripper boats. Yesterday the place was heaving with motor boats. Maybe it was bank holiday? Who knows?

Friday 30th July... Linda -  Friday already and we have more north coast exploring to do. We chose to go to Pucisca where the famous (apparantly) Brac stone is quarried. It's definately a big quarry, and it's on the headland of the narrow inlet into Pucisca town.

The quarry

...and again

The shoreline going into the inlet

It wasn't all that we had hoped for and anchoring wasn't very suitable so we took a photo of the town and left for Plan B.... Luka, just 5 miles away. 

Luka was much better, a large nook and cranny inlet almost on the north east corner of Brac. When we arrived we could see there were two restaurants with buoys. The shoreline was beautiful and so green with so many different shades and types of trees and bushes. We opted to drop the anchor and tie to shore in a small empty cove enough for a couple of boats. When we had settled we could see the water was as clear as you will ever find. But first before a swim, we took a walk in town, a 10 minute dinghy ride away. As always we took our rubbish to the bins....I don't like to keep it too long in this heat. While we were there we had an ice cream and a cider. Not at the same time... but almost! Then we bought a fresh baguette, big enough to feed an army.

This is our swimming pool 

.... (for me) once the fish have left 

What a whopper

The restaurants at Luka

Plenty of business

In the town called Povlja

It was so hot when we got back to the boat we both got straight in the water for a swim. Second unaided swim around the boat for me!

Tonight's sundowner view off the back of Thesee

Saturday 31st July & Sunday 1st August... Linda - So I'm writing a double day blog this evening. Yesterday seemed to run away with me, and it's so hot, I'm almost too tired to write it up when it gets late. Oh and also, we got a bit carried away watching people trying to anchor around us.

Back to yesterday (Saturday) then. We've spent the week pottering along the north coast of Brac and it was time to head back west, in order to get prepared for our visitors Claire & Charlie due on Tuesday. There was a gentle wind going our way (ish as always). This meant we could roll out the genoa and have a leisurely sail at about 4 knots down the centre of Brac channel. We were about two mile off the shore of the mainland. The mountains here are monsters, and passing the town of Omis there is a gap in the mountains where a river runs into the sea. It's supposed to be quite spectacular close up. Copy and paste this link below to see more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omi%C5%A1

Passing the quarry again, on Brac

Here is Omis, can you see the gap

in the mountains by the shore?

A close up zoomed in shot

We sailed for about 3 hours and covered about 13 miles, then had to motor for the following 3 hours. We wanted to spend the night in Bobovisce. This is the place we tried to go earlier this week but it was too gusty. Well guess what, it was still gusty and although it looks nice we just couldn't get the right feeling. The wind was all directions today and we ended up in Necujam on Solta Island. We've been here once already. It didn't blow our minds that time and really we were only going there for wind protection over this weekend. Well we anchored in a different spot this time, and it was much much better. It's a very large inlet and we anchored on the east side near to the swimming area. There's a lot more going on here, nice views, and even a bar called 'Phil's Beach Bar'. We haven't tried it yet. There is also another bar on the front and it has a swing in the sea. Haven't tried that yet, but I'm going to at some point for definate. 

When we arrived and anchored in Necujam (i have no idea how to pronounce that) there were about 7 boats anchored. By 9pm we counted over 30 boats and 1 superyacht. Saturday night of course, busy. As I said we spent most of the evening watching anchorers. Dean has another name for this but I daren't write that down here. 

Just a few of our neighbours last night

The superyacht was the first to leave this morning (Sunday). And again throughout the day another processsion of 'anchorers' came and went. One of them was so close to us, and Dean told him so! He left. 

Superyacht on its way to another nice place

The loony who anchored 10 metres away from us!

A few photos of Necujam. We haven't been ashore yet because we've been busy getting the boat prepared for Claire and Charlie. And phew it is so hot, 35 degrees inside the boat. I have to say the heat is overtaking my fear of swimming with fish. Sometimes you just have to get in to cool off for a while... and I did.... twice. We've changed our opinion of this place and have really warmed to it. Claire and Charlie are you ready for Necujam??

Looking to the beach area and 'Phil's bar'

Shoreline next to us

The bar with the swing in the water

(on the left)

Tomorrow, we move to the mainland, and a new exciting blog post to follow. 

The next blog post will be called 'Claire and Charlie visit us in Croatia'