Murter Otok

We have just arrived in Biograd, back on the mainland coast. The last internet cafe was the one from hell so I've waited a couple of days to put up posts from both Ross and myself.

Carolyn's view of the world...

Murter, Murter Otok, 12 July 2007

The Islands
We have spent the 12 days or so working our way (well, sailing actually) from Rab (the first three pic's are of Rab which is an incredibly picturesque town with four church spires along the bay in which we were anchored) to some of the outer islands in the north/central Croatian Adriatic – our path has included the islands of Silba, Skarda, Molat, a few different bays on Dugi Otok including Telascica Bay National Park, then Zut, Kornati, Piskera and Lavsa. The Kornati islands, also a national park, are especially amazing. They are mostly barren rocky islands and there are about 147 of them. They form a strange moonscape, dotted with the odd ruin, church atop a hill or in quiet cove, dwelling, tufts of straw coloured grass, very old stone walls and are particularly dramatic at sun set.

We anchored in a quiet well protected but visually open cove (Sipnate) one night with only 3 other boats, all at quite a distance to each other (which is quite unusual – usually you anchor in a quite deserted spot and within the half hour someone has come along and anchored right next to you - and then another and another etc - even though there maybe hundreds of meters of bay available around you). It was surreal, like a white aquatic version of the Olga’s; so quiet, no people noise, no cars, no music, a few buildings at the head of the bay and then the odd huge power boat or people carrier noisily blasting through the channel half a km away.

islands and landscapes, passed a 6th Century fortress ruin only a few NM down the coast then branched off the see the semi circle of 80m cWe were up early the next morning and left in the stillness of the early day to explore moreliffs at Mana Otok with dramatically placed ruins of a Greek style village atop - built for a film shoot in 1961.

While the Kornati’s are so remote, still at every anchorage a little Kornoba (restaurant) is read dessert menu is never available. The islands are uninhabited, except for sheep, but in the short summer season ancient houses are used as holiday homes or as small restaurants for they to sell you a fish platter – some are good some not so good – unfortunately the ice cream on the passing boat trade and day trippers from the mainland. Boat is the only way to reach the islands and all food, drink and other supplies are shipped in (things are not so cheap). I love the outer islands and would very much like to come back and stay in one of the island houses for a couple of weeks.

Fitness and First Aid
I’ve had a bit of a neck and wrenched shoulder problem for the last couple of weeks and have been on light duties. The shoulder strain has come good but the neck still has a bit of a way to go. I’m terribly disappointed that I am not the Amazon women I imagined I would be by now! I’ll need to implement some sort of exercise regime or there is not a hope in hell of that hidden Amazonian ever surfacing (or maybe I’ll review my expectations… hmmm where was that bakery....).

To add salt to the wound, the other day Ross collected a cleat on the deck with his little toe. After quietly spattering a few drops of blood around the deck (Ross is a very good bleeder) he asked (in very calm voice) for me to bring up some paper towels. “What for?” I asked. “I’ve cut myself.” Eager to put my St Johns first aid certificate into practice I leapt to the task. After clearing the blood I tried to get a look at the wound to assess the damage was so that I could, like a good Florence Nightingale, pull together the right items from our extensive first aid kit. As the cut was right under his little toe this was quite difficult with out adding to the trauma. All of a sudden the blood drained from my head. I went down below to get gauze, antiseptic, bandage etc and found that I had to sit down for a moment and put my head between my knees, did not say anything to Ross as I did not want to be a complete wooze or to panic him in any way. As soon as I was back in the cockpit and tending the wound I came over all light headed again and there was no hiding it. Whilst cleaning the wound, applying antiseptic and bandaging to ensure that the bleeding stopped, there was me every few minutes with my head between my knees reassuring Ross that I would be fine and that really there was little wrong with the toe (of course, Ross was having a rather good laugh at this point). What a disappointment! Seem I have little (read NO) tolerance for blood, and it is weird that the reaction to feint is so completely involuntary. And it was I who gave Ross a good ribbing when we did our first aid course ‘cause he had to leave the room due to squeamishness whenever there was a healthy discussion of car accidents and other bloody injuries! Anyway, he ended up with a well cared for bandaged toe and it is healing without too much trouble.

Sailing and the Weather
We have spent more time sailing now, in quite varied conditions. I have been a bit of a stick in the mud on the sailing front as some of our first passages were not in ideal conditions and I have managed to retain a vivid recollection of beating into the wind and seasickness on the way into Rovinj and more difficult seas off the Istrian Peninsula. Since then we have had some lovely days with gentle breezes and sails rolled out. Some times motor sailing, generally taking the sailing easy and going where the wind blows. Nonetheless, I keep my eye, like a hawk, on the weather. Religiously I listen to the official weather report in English daily at 0735 and 2135 on which ever VHF station is clearest. If there is a hint of a warning then Ross has to calm my concerns to hope to weigh anchor.

Yesterday we had quite a nice sail from Lavsa in the Kornati’s to Murter. There were thunderstorms dotted around us in the distance, visibility was excellent and the winds were fresh. We managed to sail in nicely before a storm passed close by but more towards the mainland. Since then the skies have been clear and winds have been continuous – NE 12 -20 knots and gusting. There is a warning for gusts 35 – 45knts this afternoon. I think it is our first ‘bora’. The ‘bora’ is the wind that makes us tremble. There are so many warning of the potential dangers of it but, alas, there have been no alarms going off in the town so we are not really quite sure – must go and ask the locals. In the mean time we will be staying put until this passes.

Last night the wind was relentless and we were swinging around a bit (there must be some current too), so Ross had little sleep. I’ve always been a good sleeper and continue to maintain this tradition. Once the lights are out there is not a lot that disturbs me. Ross is the opposite. He’s on his own checking whether our anchor is holding or dragging (or someone else’s), checking out each creak, clang and groan - there are plenty of them, and there’s me tucked up in bed, ‘zzzzzzz….’. Oh, the loneliness of the sailors life. Thank goodness for his vigilance!

So here we are in Murter and, after the outer islands where the ‘fresh’ produce ain’t so fresh and is unsurprisingly expensive, this seems so terribly civilised. It was terribly exciting to find gorgeous looking fruit and veg shops, a fish market, butchers and a baker. There is a scattering of little very good looking restaurants and there is an evening market with locally produced olive oil, travarica (a schnapps like after dinner drink with herbs soaked in it) and souvenirs - and it is all rather laid back. This is a good place to be holed up until the wind calms.

Hope all is well for every one at home. Thanks to everyone who has emailed hellos and wonderful newsy emails – keep them coming!


And now a few words from Capt'n Ross...

Bare boat chartering – it’s renting a yacht to sail by yourself without a paid skipper. It’s a big industry here in Croatia. Private investors buy the yachts and loan them to charter companies to manage. Income goes 65% to owner, 35% to charter company. With yachts renting out for high amounts (in the vicinity of $1000 per day in high season) it sounds like an attractive proposition for an owner on the face of it. However the boats get hard use. A manager of a charter company I was talking with said that the damage the yachts sustain is regular and sometimes major. The axiom about rental cars – ‘no car accelerates and brakes as hard as a rental car’ – no doubt applies to rental yachts as well. Typical damage apparently is to the bow of the boat. When leaving an anchorage the driver of the boat in their haste to be away, starts motoring off at speed when the anchor has been raised to the surface of the water but before it is stowed on the bow. The anchor being suspended pendulum-like on a metre or so of chain then ‘rings like a bell’ when it connects with the fibreglass bow of the boat as the boat moves off and the last of the chain is hauled in. (Another Manali crew member who shall remain nameless was kind enough to demonstrate how this is done recently - more fibreglass repairs are now scheduled) To charter a boat in Croatia the designated skipper needs a licence. The Manager I spoke with joked about the system and told me that to his dismay the licences are obtainable in half a day or so - for a fee. Sounds a bit like a licence from ‘Le Paket Flak de Corn’.

Late afternoon anchoring time in the sheltered bays out in the islands where we are at the moment is entertaining – mainly watching the charterers anchor their boats. We are beginners at this ourselves but even we can see that some of these (invariably) guys have no bloody idea!

The ‘sailing for dummies’ books tell you to rig a trip line onto your anchor. It’s a piece of light rope with a small buoy attached to it which attaches to the front of your anchor and has two purposes – firstly to let you know where your anchor is if you have to abandon it and want to come back for it later and secondly to help you release - ‘trip’ - the anchor should it get fouled. Being sailing dummies we used to dutifully deploy our anchor trip line with attached buoy when anchoring. Not any more. Regularly other boats would come along and attempt to tie up to the buoy on our trip line thinking that it was a mooring buoy that they could use (some areas have laid mooring buoys attached to concrete blocks on the sea bed). Of course as soon as their boat exerts any pressure on our line via the buoy it potentially trips our anchor and we all start drifting off. After a few ‘full and frank’ discussions between Carolyn and me and other boaters who couldn’t believe that the buoy was attached to our anchor (even though it has the name of our boat written on it) we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stopped using it altogether. Que Sera Sera.

With anchoring, there sometimes appears to be a herding or a ‘circling of the wagons’ instinct at play. You can be anchored alone in a big bay; another boat arrives, sees where you are anchored and thinks ‘oh that must be a safe scenic place to anchor’ and comes and drops their anchor next to you – leaving the whole rest of the bay empty. Go figure.

Anyway, off now to find another boat to anchor next to.

Marine Weather Forecasts
We can receive them 3 times a day via our VHF radio. Currently we receive them from coast radio stations in Rijeka or Split. Broadcasts are in Croatian and then in English. Carolyn usually tunes in to the 8am and the 10pm transmissions. Forecasts are only for the next 24hour period. It would be nice to get a longer forecast but beggars can’t be choosers and they are better than nothing. When in towns we go to the harbourmaster’s office which prints and displays the wether forecast in 3 or 4 languages including English. Adriatic Sea forecasts for the next 3 or 4 days are downloadable from the internet and we check these when we can get online i.e. not terribly often.

However, out here in the islands there are many sheltered anchorages so a ‘bolt hole’ should usually be no more than an hour or two away should the Sirocco or the dreaded Bora arise out of the blue. Spectacular thunder storms are still churning through quite regularly – a good one a few nights ago with torrential rain and gusting winds of 35 knots or more. We ended up starting our motor as a precaution to get us out of trouble if our anchor dragged – but it didn’t and we survived to tell the tale.

The weather has a big impact on your day to day life. At home in a house it is nice to lie back in a bed and listen to a storm pass through – it’s a bit different on the boat. Suddenly arriving storms in the middle of the night more often than not sees us on deck in the dark getting a windblown drenching as we check all ropes and anchor lines

Our progress – Stately!
We have tentatively planned to leave the boat for the winter at a marina in Marmaris, Turkey. We are told that the weather in the Med changes rapidly after the equinox as winter approaches. Snow in Turkey in October is, apparently, not absolutely unusual.

We plan to be jetting back home to Oz by November with the boat safely tucked up somewhere until next March. Turkey may still be possible but we don’t think we will leave Croatia until late August which gives us September and maybe a bit of October to sail through Montenegro (o.k. that won’t take too long) and through Greece. We plan on giving Albania a wide berth – it would be interesting to have a look but we are too much of a relatively affluent soft target for the rampant crime there.

In light of our stately progress so far through Croatia we are now seeing the limited time that this plan would give us in Greece and may have to rethink it – possibly we should leave the boat in Greece rather than Turkey and not rush at the end of the season.

For tax reasons (as non-citizens of the EU we were eligible to buy the boat in the EU VAT exempt, thereby saving around 20%) we need to take the boat out of the EU for a minimum of 6 months every 18 months. So, this winter we could leave the boat in the EU (in Greece for e.g.) without tax imposts. Turkey is not an EU member yet so next northern winter there may work in well with our tax calendar. After 6 months outside the EU you can bring the boat back into the EU for another 18 months and this cycle can repeat indefinitely under the law as it currently stands.

The decision will probably swing on whether we can find a marina (recommended by others who have used it) in Greece to leave the boat.

On Tax Avoidance (er sorry, Minimisation)
With VAT (a tax similar to GST) rates hovering at around 20% or more in most EU countries, trying to avoid VAT appears to be something of a European preoccupation on larger purchases.

When we were at Izola in Slovenia (an EU country) collecting our boat it was interesting to watch the behaviour of some others who were EU citizens. Apparently there is a tax loophole whereby EU citizens can buy a boat in the EU but permanently store it outside of the EU and then they avoid the VAT. Catch is, they only have around 3 days from the day they get the boat to get it out of the EU permanently, otherwise they are hit with VAT. This is why Izola in Slovenia is such a popular place to get a new boat delivered to you – it is only 20 kilometres or so from the border with Croatia and Croatia is not yet an EU country.

So, if you can get your boat into Croatian waters within 3 or so days and you leave it there (or in any other non EU country) you avoid the tax even if you are an EU citizen. This loophole leads to all kinds of shenanigans as people rush to depart Slovenia in brand new boats, heading for non-EU countries. Why not just take delivery in Croatia and avoid the VAT that way? – I suspect because you are then hit with a Croatian sales tax.

I think our favourite ‘ballsy’ effort was the couple who took delivery of a new Elan 434 (nice boats - maybe AUD$300,000 to $400,000 tax exempt) and as their ‘tax time’ was running out they immediately set off in it straight to Turkey – before it had been painted with primer or antifoul. They were going to get that done when they got there.

There are no such things as shakedown cruises for these people to sort out the inevitable teething problems on their new boats. Another guy (an ex-pat Scottish chicken farmer who lives in Bulgaria – a somewhat raucous guy who borrowed our cordless drill and then we just heard the sounds of constant drilling for the next two days as he installed all the extras he had bought for the boat) was taking his new boat straight through from Izola to Bulgaria on the Black Sea as its first voyage – with a generally inexperienced crew.

I suspect that most of them muddle through although you hear about the odd rescue – I recently read of an English crew on a delivery of a new yacht that took to their liferaft in the Adriatic and abandoned the boat which was sinking. They called home on a satellite phone and the Italian coast guard was turned out to rescue them. They hadn’t hit anything. Somebody in the factory just probably forgot to tighten something (crucial!) up properly and the crew found out about it at sea. The yacht was recovered.