Charlie's last week in Croatia
Thursday 19th August... Linda - It's Charlie's last week here in Croatia, and we are trying to find new places to go. This morning we decided to move on, but before we did, a sea fog descended around us. At first we thought it was another forest fire. Visibility was still pretty good though so we left as planned. As we got further out visibility improved and it became apparent that the fog was hanging around Vis. Destination today, north coast Hvar.
First of three navy vessels today
Chartplotter showing our shortcut though
the Pakleni Islands (south of Hvar)
Charlie was quite tired at the start of the journey, and I thought maybe he had seasickness, then I realised that we hadn't got to bed last night until after 11pm. After about an hour he got back into the sailing routine and was fine after that. We tried to goosewing the sails but the wind dropped and it was useless so we gave up. It was a bit of practise though.
When we reached Hvar we could see smoke coming off the hills.... more forest fires. It seemed that they had been put out and were just smouldering..... we hoped anyway.
We were hoping to anchor behind this headland...yikes
More smoke appearing here
By this time the wind had finally picked up and we were getting up to 17 knots behind us. How annoying now that we were actually trying to find a suitable anchorage. We finally found a spot, Charlie kindly advised us afterwards that we had taken one and half hours to anchor!. Thanks for that Charlie 😄. So we ended up in Uvala Zukova, north of Stari Grad. The water is just fab. Glad we took our time to drop the hook.
Happiness is a boy in water
Having a whale of a time
Snorkelling with Grandad
Charlie just loves the water
Well who wouldn't in a place like this?
During the course of the day we caught glimpes of the fire fighter sea planes, which was quite exciting as they were so close up. Tonight the smoke has disappeared we are glad to say. Hopefully a nice calm night with some good sleep. But before bedtime a game of Nominated Whist. It was a good game, and Charlie is willing to learn the best way to play your cards, win and lose tricks, and get rid of the lead if he has all of his nominated tricks. He has been very well behaved whilst he's been here with us, no strops or fall outs. Well done Charlie. All in all it's been a difficult sailing day and he has handled it extremely well.
This is my perfect morning
Looking out across the channel to
the south side of Brac island
This ship was last night's neighbour
When we had settled into our new spot out came the toys. First was the paddleboard. It was Charlie's first go on it, for some reason he hasn't been particularly interested in going on it so far. I think he would rather be in the water, not on top of it.
A trial run, tied to Thésée with a short line
Now he's off into the corner of the cove.
Grandad trying to keep up
Grandad still lagging behind
Swim faster Grandad!
Mission accomplished
Now for a session of jumping in
Most of the day has been spent in the water. You can see how perfectly clear it is. Thésée is sitting in 9 metres of water and you can see the bottom. Dean swam to the anchor at 14 metres and he could see it without diving down. Just incredible.
After the paddle-boarding and the jumping in, out came the snorkel and fins. Charlie's first time wearing the fins. It was so funny on his first fin swim. He was astonished how fast he could swim with the fins on, you could read his brain trying to comprehend the speed. Dean threw some bread in to attract a few fish for Charlie to snorkel them.
Loving every minute in the water
especially now he has extra speed
Dean was showing Charlie how to snorkel down under the water. They really had a great time. Then after quite a lot of practise they both snorkelled under the bow of the boat from one side to the other!
Tied to shore in our new spot
Snorkel lessons
Getting the hang of it
Both swimming underwater now
Charlie was having such a great time, I think he actually forgot that he was swimming without his float for comfort. It just came naturally to him. Dean was taking photos with the GoPro underwater camera. I will get some added to the blog.
First attempt
Getting into the swing of it now
Getting used to things
Nearly there
There you go!
Saturday 21st August... Linda - This cove which we are anchored in has been so perfect for us. Two whole days of chilling out, relaxing, swimming, snorkelling, diving, and paddleboarding. And all for free. Charlie wasn't impressed when he got the job of washing the bed sheets this morning though.... in a bucket trampling them with his feet as if he was treading grapes.
Dirty work
For Dean, it was a morning of work too. The batteries don't seem to be holding up to the job, and the fridge & freezer keep cutting in and out and semi defrosting. So he was doing checks on all the related possible causes. We had to start the generator and run it for over an hour to give the batteries a boost.
This afternoon was more fun and we all spent time in the sea. Charlie was improving his diving, and he was indeed much more co-ordinated than yesterday. Still a fair way to go, but good progress made. This cove is the absolute ideal place for diving practise. A bit later Charlie went off on the paddleboard and was actually standing up on it. More progress....there's no stopping him now.
Dean goes off for a distant paddle
Charlie is confined to the immediate vicinity.
He did really well, no falling off.
You would think he'd done it before
Oh, and I forgot to say that yesterday I was stung by a wasp..... I'm not impressed with that at all! We had a BBQ tonight, burgers and sausages. Thanks Dean for being the BBQ king as always.
Sunday 22nd August... Charlie - Over the couple of days I've been learning how to dive and paddle board with grandad. I first tried diving and kept belly flopping but got the hang of it. Then I tried paddle boarding and was successful on the first try. I kept doing it until I was able to stand up and do it on my own! Continuing the diving I practiced and made some good dives the next day, then... I DID A PERFECT DIVE!👌 Today it was mostly moving to Solta and swimming with nanny and grandad. I felt a bit sick today so I haven`t been in the water 24/7. But I still managed and ice cream and some crisps. (●'◡'●)
Linda - Time to move on back towards Split area. Claire is arriving again on Tuesday and we need to be back by then. So we had to leave our beautiful anchorage at 10am. But first thing, even before breakfast, Grandad gave us a challenge to swim around the boat three times non-stop. Both Charlie and I accepted the challenge! And we both completed it! It was another tricky departure as the wind had picked up again unexpectedly. There were a couple of hiccups but nothing major.
We were heading to our safe haven of Necujam on Solta Island. There were absolutely loads of boats going the other way... mainly charter boats starting their week. On the way through the gap between Solta and Brac islands a large motor boat came through really quickly making lots of wash. It made Thesee bash into the waves it was so bad.
So as we entered Necujam we spotted dolphins. They weren't interested in swimming with the boat but it was good to see them anyway. Charlie was excited as it was his first dolphin spotting experience this holiday.
Charlie dolphin spotting
Once we had anchored Grandad and Charlie snorkeled to look at the anchor, but the water is not very clear here and being in 11 metres of water it was impossible to see. We decided to go for a legacy walk and an ice cream. I had Sour Cherry flavour, Grandad had Wild Fruit flavour, Charlie had Stracciatella flavour.
Both off to check the anchor
Charlie holds the anchor chain
whilst Dean has another look
Little Church ashore
Thesee of course
Nice views from the shoreline
The swings, which I still haven't
managed to get to yet
Monday 23rd August... Linda - This morning we did a small grocery shop for milk, bread, and some fruit. You can't really get much of anything interesting as Croatia's 'mini markets' are just corner shops. But afterwards we went to the cafe for elevenses and at last Charlie and I got to go on the water swings. Well, I should say 'eventually' got to go on the swings! The water was out of our depth and we had to climb our legs over the seats and pull ourselves up on the ropes. It must have been quite a sight watching our antics 😅.
Charlie tries first
Then it's my turn
We did it
Tonight we have moved to an anchorage near Trogir ready for Claire's arrival tomorrow. The weather this week looks a bit hit and miss, so we'll have to play it by ear until Charlie and Claire depart on Thursday.
Tuesday 24th August... Linda - We had a right old blow come through last night in the anchorage. It all started about 9pm, and fortunately we had put the dinghy and outboard engine back on board. It was supposed to gust up to 17 knots. Dean said he thought it was more like 30 knots. Quite a lot of rain too, and a few flashes of lightning in the distance. I stayed up until gone 1.30am monitoring the situation and keeping my mind occupied. I find it impossible to lie in bed when it's so windy. Dean was going to take over but it felt like it was calming down and we both slept until morning.
At 9am we (I) decided we should move into Marina Baotic (about 200 metres from the anchorage) for two nights. We settled in, looked around, had showers and at midday set off on a mile walk into Trogir to meet Claire off the bus.
Murals in the marina
Boat lift!
Yacht club
Yacht club swimming pool
Claire arrives... big hugs
We all seemed to arrive at the bus station at the same time. Charlie was excited to see his mum again. Dean took us for lunch in Trogir and then we hung around for the boat taxi to start so we could get it back to the marina with our shopping. The boat taxi took us right to Thesee in the marina. We have a hugely massive catamaran next to us. It's 60 feet long and very high. Thesee is dwarfed sitting next to it.
In the bar waiting for the water taxi to start
Cocktails and Coke
Water taxi back to the marina
Charlie was tickled to see so many birds. I thought it was
funny they were facing 'head to wind'
A dwarfed Thesee
Wednesday 25th August... Linda - Quite a lot of thunder, lightning, and rain during the night. I'm glad we are berthed nextdoor to the huge catamaran with the huge mast!
Dean spent a while tinkering with boat batteries. He put them into desulphication mode, and then topped them up with de-ionised water.
Hoping for better perfomance
There was a bit of a downpour this morning, and the sky looked rather menacing, but the day brightened up a treat. About midday we walked to the nearby beach, it really was unexpectedly quite nice. Claire and Charlie had a quick swim in the sea, and then we all stopped for lunch in a beachside cafe. The food was excellent value for money. I had to take half of my pizza back to the boat, it was so big.
Morning skies
The mid-week empty marina
All charter boats are out
Yacht club swimming pool again
Not very big or even deep
Along the seafront
Very pleasant
... and quite quirky
Dean chasing Charlie into the water
Claire and Charlie have a dip
Looking along the beach at Seget Donji
Charlie has a whopping burger for lunch
Later we played our last two games of Rummikub and then just about managed to eat the rest of my pizza between the four of us. Our last day together in Croatia. Tomorrow it's time to say goodbye.
Thursday 26th August... Linda - So the day had come to say our goodbyes to Charlie & Claire. We've done so much in the last 3 weeks, with the most exciting achievement being Charlie learning to swim, snorkel, and dive. It was 9am when we hugged and waved each others goodbye.
Time to go and get that pre-departure covid test!
Bye bye, see you soon
Before 10am Thesee and crew were on our way out of Trogir for the last time. Today's journey took 7 and half hours all the way to one of our favourite places, Uvala Gradina, Korcula island. En-route we spotted the ferry (aptly named Korcula) which we have seen so many times with Charlie these last few weeks.
It was a lovely day to be out on the water, but with only light winds we sailed for about 3 hours and motored for the rest. It's been quite a while since we've done such a long passage and it seemed ages before we arrived at our destination. Like I said, we know this place well. We've used the buoys before and were a bit miffed to have to pay 150 kuna for anchoring tonight. We had hoped the money man had already been 😅
Approaching Korcula at last
Are we there yet??
Almost there, at last
Well a new chapter in the Adventures of Thesee tomorrow as we continue our journey south towards Montenegro.
The next blog post will be called 'Exploring Croatia's southern islands'
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