Red Adventures: June 2011

Cres-week one continued

Friday, Ken and I drove to Zagreb utilizing the car ferry from Merag on Otok Cres to meet John Hardiman who had flown in on Thursday.

Car Ferry approaching the dock

While waiting for the ferry, Ken checked the Cub scores.

John will stay with Charlie and I on the boat for the next week, and then in our apartment during race week. All our connections for our rental car, the boat ferry and driving in a new country has gone quite well. And, frankly, I love driving 130 km per hour. It sounds so fast!

View from our Zagreb Hotel window

Ken will return on Saturday, June 18th to meet up with our race crew and get the boat prepared for the ORC World Championship Regatta. We are one of two USA boats and are surrounded by boats from Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, and so on. (an interesting mix of language). We tend to be a curiosity at many of the marina’s we go to with our big red boat and large US flag on our transom. The question we hear over and over, “did you sail your boat all the way from America?”

The next few weeks will be filled with friends and race crew coming and going and full exploration of Cres. I highly recommend a visit to Croatia if you ever have the opportunity. It is truly a beautiful country. .

Another great view of Cres

One of the "locals" in his day attire...

With Ken gone, Charlie, John and I spent several hours each day working on projects on the boat.

John and I "hauled" Charlie up the mast to change the windex light.

Cres - Week One

In the morning, Thursday, after Raouf went to the Bakery and I hit the market for some lunch meats and cheeses, we cast off around 9am. Cres Village, on Otok Cres is our final destination and this is the last sailing day for the crew. Alistair and Charlie sailed most of the way until we had to head up into the wind.

Alistar helping Isabella "study" for Captain Ken's sailing quiz.

As we approached our last hour of sailing, we lost our wind and resorted to our motor. Michelle and Isabella took turns at the helm and loved having the opportunity to “steer” the boat.

Coming into Cres was a beautiful sight to see. It is a wonderful large bay with the old village in the left curve of the shoreline. Along the right side of the bay is our ACI marina where we will keep the boat until the 27th until meeting up with our next cruising crew. After checking in at the marina and finding the bathrooms, showers, and cold beer, we took up the job of boat recovery.

We left the job of packing the girls items to the Dad’s as it looked like a insurmountable task! But in no time things were packed and ready to go. They have plans to go to the only Resort in town, Hotel Kimen. No swimming pool, but very close to the shoreline were swimming is easy.

Charlie and Alistar scrubbed the deck and sides of the boat and after a short bit the boat was gleaming! Ken and I made arrangements with the car rental company to have our car delivered from Rijeka the next morning so I could take him to the airport for his flight back to the US. Charlie got his “to-do” list of projects to be done on the boat in Ken’s absence.

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011, Veli Losinj

Wednesday was a great day for sailing and as Charlie stated, we used every sail. All-point spinnaker, the Asymmetrical spinnaker, Genoa & Main kept Charlie and Alistair busy while the girls spent many hours coloring in the v-berth. Around 4:30, we stopped at Losinj and we discovered the most charming small village and cove.

Veli Losinj Poster I found on the Ferry

Not really a marina, but one or two spots for travelers to tie up along the Quay. The inner harbor was filled with local fishing boats and there were 2 or 3 larger tour boats but that was it. We tied up alongside a restaurant and the girls were all over the boat entertaining the few that were eating at the dockside tables. Imagine, a big red boat with an American flag flying and 2 young dancing beautiful girls on the deck! One of the largest dockside tables just happened to be along where we tied the boat so we took charge of this table and ordered appetizers, wine and beer! It was a beautiful feast. We spent the remainder of the afternoon doing a bit of exploration in which Ken and I found a hidden “Bonsai” garden open to the public. Aside from the interesting Bonsai and other plants, we discovered that Kiwi is actually a vine fruit!

Wednesday evening, we ate dinner at the same restaurant after I fixed something for the girls so they could have an early evening.

Launching Isabella's "sailboat"

It floats!

Inner Harbor at Veli Losinj

Tuesday, Overnight on the hook (really a mooring ball)

Tuesday, June 7th. We left Skadin around 7:30 AM with our fresh laundry, some more ice, new groceries and another full shopping cart that was filled full of assorted “liquids”. We would like to find someplace for our one anchor-off that was planned for Tuesday. It is unfortunate that today’s weather is overcast and windy. We snacked most of the day and the plan would be to cook dinner on the boat. Our first bay that we tried later in the day had 2 other boats anchored. It was still windy and after 20 minutes, we found the anchor was not holding so we looked for another spot.

First Anchor try in a windy bay with Fish farm close by.

Our future mooring ball in our private cove

It wasn’t a long journey to find the 2nd cove called Brbinj on Dugi Otok. It was an absolutely lovely small cove with a single large mooring ball. We tied up to the mooring ball and had the cove all to ourselves.

The 20 knot winds finally died down and we had a lovely pasta dinner on the deck. In the middle of the night we had a huge thunder and lightning storm with heavy rain that followed. By morning, the sun was out and we had a relaxing hour or so before shoving off. For breakfast, I cooked my normal fried potatoes, sausage and egg mix. One skillet dishes work best on the boat especially when the weather is not completely cooperative for cooking.

Alistar taking pictures of us from the water

Sunday, Monday at Stadin ACI Marina

Sunday morning,

June 5th, we left our mooring ball early to sail to Skadin Marina where we planned to stay for 2 nights. We arrived around 6:30 which was later than we had expected, but it was nice to have a full day tomorrow for play and regrouping. This ACI marina did not have a pool for the girls to play in, but they had excellent showers, shopping and laundry service. We made arrangements to have our laundry done and back to us by late the next day. You can imagine we all scrambled to collect what ever we could to get it done by someone else! Dockside laundry just doesn’t do it!!

In the morning, Raouf, Alistair, Michelle & Isabella took a tour ferry to the National Park where there were waterfalls. The internet service at the marina was very good so Ken, Charlie and I worked at the boat for most of the day until the other crew came back from the Falls. I had a chance to get some of the blog updated with pictures, although several weeks late.

In the evening, Raouf, Alistair, Ken and I went to dinner leaving Charlie in charge of the girls. We had a wonderful meal of their fresh fish, with spinach and risotto.

Friday, June 3, Saturday June 4th, 2011

Friday Harbor

Stopping for fuel & a drink - Saturday

Saturday, we left our cute harbor at 6:30 starting out with the motor, then sailed, then motored and finally after turning North East, got a nice Spinnaker run in. We stopped in Hvar a beer, fuel and a bit of groceries. It has been blazing hot and the cool drinks were the ticket. We found a great cove for the night, (U. Sesula, on Otok Solta) where the restaurant management would dingy out to flag you into their spots. We selected one that had mooring balls off shore and he helped us tie up and bring a line to the shore. We made dinner arrangements with him which included his coming back to the boat to collect us to shore, and then back to the boat after dinner. There were many charter boats in the cove and lots of partying before dinner. Before dinner we all did a bit of swimming to cool down and with the line to shore, it gave the girls something to hang on to.

This is U. Sesula on Otok Solta where we tied to a mooring ball and stern to shore.

Dingy ride to the restaurant

Girls ready for dinner

Our dinner restaurant - and dingy service!

A quick, cold swim off the stern before dinner

Friday, June 3rd - Racisce Village

Man Crew at work!

Isabella and Alistar relaxing

The girls using my camera

We arrived at a beautiful harbor with a small quay. No boats there so we took the quay broadside. Tonight we would feed the girls early and try to get them to bed at a reasonable time. We had some local teenagers singing on the quay and at first it was cute, but later the restaurant owner offered to shoo them away for us.

Both girls talking to their mommy's. Michelle is demonstrating her new snapping her finger trick!

Isabella, Michelle and Charlie

Thursday - June 2nd - Otok Mljet (Island Mljet)

Okuklje di Otokmljet Cove (yes that is how it is spelled)

Local fishing boats

Thursday, June 2nd, we motored into Okuklje di Otokmljet, a small bay with several small moorings operated independent of each other. We were flagged in by one and it seems a nice location. We later found we had to have dinner at the adjoining restaurant in order to get free mooring. It was a late night for the girls and they were close to asleep even before their dinners arrived. The food was outstanding and served family style.

The girls at their first port, exploring the sea life

The girls working down below on their workbooks.

The next morning we allowed ourselves a lazy day and while the crew went to breakfast, Ken and I stayed and did some work on the boat. We shoved off at about 11:30 and Ken proceeded to give the girls some sailing lessons. They shared the job of pulling in the jib sheet, and grinding on the first tack. We sailed most of Thursday and when the girls got antsy, we went downstairs to start their notebooks. I had made some project books for them that had coloring projects, paper boat directions and various other things to keep them interested. I made chicken roll-ups for late lunch and then the girls took a nap for several hours. Sailing is HARD!

Dubrovnik - ACI Marina Dubrovnik

After taking a taxi to meet our new crew, we had lunch in the walled city with the crew and then they followed us back to the boat. The girls were happy to have the v-berth as their new home and quickly made their fort! After they settled in, we spend several hours at the pool and had some dinner. Tomorrow, we will start to provision and prepare for our trip up the Croatian coast. Raouf, Alistair and I did some market shopping and used the markets trolley to bring all our :”loot” to the boat. Again, we got 3 bags of ice from three different restaurants that should help with keeping our food cold and ice down our drinks.

Long leg to Dubrovnik

Did I way it was to be a lazy 4 days? Not likely with only three crew. First we had no wind, then wind enough for the Genoa and Main sail. Then we had gusts over 25 knows and as dark set in, we decided to take the main down. Of course, that is when we got the 30 plus gusts. That goodness for autopilot so the three of us could drop the main and get it tied. We continued to sail with the Genoa ½ furled. Later in the night, the stars came out and we had 12 to 15 knots on the nose.

Around 3AM, just as Charlie was getting off his shift, and I was preparing to go to sleep, we ran over a huge submerged fishing net. We shut off the engine and put out the Genoa. Because of the wind at our nose, our bouncing for the remainder of the night dislodged the huge hemp rope and we were able to get the boat going again. We continued to motor-sail the rest of the night and into the day. It was a long day of motorsailing, but the shifts have gone well. The next night, around 1AM, Charlie is driving and I am watch, we see a boat approaching us at a fairly fast pace. I called Ken awake and by the time he was up in the companionway, we heard this boats loudspeaker state it was coming along our Port side. It was the Italian Coast Guard checking us out. We found later when we stopped at Otranto, that there are huge training facilities near where this boat came out with its lights a flashing! I think that they were satisfied that we were not refugees and headed back to shore.

We arrived at Otranto around 7AM on Monday and got an easy med-docking. We had to go through Italian Customs to leave the country and that was a bit of an ordeal, but turned out ok. As we were leaving several hours later to face our last overnight, we got fouled in someone elses mooring line. The marina staff had to assist us and pulled us out backwards after Charlie jumped into the water to take the line off the prop.

We motored to the fuel dock, and I then ran to the snack bar for some calzones , chips and the boys got icecream.

Customs dock in Gruz (Dubrovnik) after a weary 3 nights sailing.

Night three – heading to Dubrovnik we found this night to be the easiest with lighter winds. At this time we were well into our shift changes and the night went without any incident. It took 24 hours to cross the Adriatic to Dubrovnik. My last shift was noon to 3pm so while Charlie slept and Ken was at the Nav station, I washed some clothes up on the deck, and took a cockpit bath! Heaven! We arrived in Gruz where the Port of Entry was. Customs took about 2 hours and then we motored 30 minutes to the ACI Dubrovnik Marina. This marina is the best we have seen so far with great facilities and a big pool!
We had pizza for dinner, got a great night sleep Tuesday night, and in the morning called Raouf to plan on our meeting up with the new crew. I needed to have time to clean the boat for the new crew so we planned to meet them (Raouf, Michelle his daughter, & Alistair, Isabella his daughter) at the Old walled city of Dubrovnik.

4 days and 3 nights! On to Dubvronik

Friday
I did a bit more laundry and shopping before we had a bit of lunch. The fish market was open so I bought some swordfish steaks and a bag of ice.

.

We left the marina around 12:40pm. We motored about 1 ½ hours to Isola Volcano thinking we would check out an active volcano. They also had some healing mud baths that many tourists come to sit in. We decided not to walk up the 2 hour hike to see the volcano, and instead we had a nice lunch and then left for Isola Lipari. In Lipari, we found free WiFi, a wonderful Market, and a big fish market for our ice requirements. We had our swordfish for dinner with potatoes and fresh peas. Even the box-o-wine I had was good that night. Overnight, we experienced a great bit of swaying at the dock due to all the ferry’s coming and going . The fish market opened early and so by 7AM, I had the ice we needed and we left for our 3-night/4-day sail. We started out motoring so I was able to make crepes for breakfast and the remainder of our first day was filled with some line repair and my catching up on my journal’s. With no wind, could be a lazy 4 days.