Vis

We seem to have written rather an epic for this entry, but then there has been a bit of drama over the last month. Apologies to those who are time poor and will only get a chance too look at the pics.


Sorry Craig, no map yet but we will find one at some stage.


From Carolyn...

Kut, Vis Otok, 16 August 2007

Changes

After weeks of consistently hot weather it has become changeable - ever since Trogir where we stayed a night in the marina (on 30th July) to fill up with water, recharge the batteries and to give Manali a good clean before collecting our first guest, Elizabeth.

Storm #1
We arrived early at the marina so that we could get in as easily as possible as squeezing into a marina late in the day is one of the more traumatic of boating experiences, especially when the wind is strong. The forecast for later in the day was for strong winds and, sure enough, the wind started and there were still boats streaming in. One of the last ones was directed to the last remaining half berth which happened to be next to us.

The woman at the helm was courageous along with her crew of 3 who fended off and threw lines in the most adverse of conditions (it is such a pity that you can't see the wind in the photo). After a few attempts to bring the boat into our row she finally got the boat in but was immediately swept sideways into the pulpits and anchors of the boats opposite us. A line was thrown to the marina guy and one other on our side and the boat was dragged across then half a dozen people (including us) manhandled her in. Boy, they were relieved when it was over. The winds increased over night (lots of clanging halyards) and abated in the morning to a gloriously clear fine and cooler day.

So that was the first of the winds and storms that have since become a regular occurrence.
Not a storm just a bit of windThe next few nights we anchored in Trogir town harbour (rather than paying a steep nightly fee at the marina) so that we could collect Elizbeth, attend to some business, restock and be tourists for a bit.

After a day of light breezes, the gusting wind returned late the next day. A casualty made its way into the anchorage and as they drifted towards us asked us if we could possibly move. Their main sail was shredded and their engine failed. They were dragging anchor and had no way to stop. We got out the way. Thankfully one of the other boats nearby had a diver who dove on their prop and got one problem untangled. The engine was working again but they could not get the anchor up. It was some hours before assistance arrived.

Another boat dragged anchor that night and found themselves almost on the rocks on the other side of the channel in the morning. Thankfully, they woke in time to avoid tragedy.
We thought we would head out to Hvar, one of the highly recommended islands, away from the congestion of the mainland towns. We stopped for a night in an uninhabited cove. The water was clear and we swam and took it easy in the morning before making our way to the Hvar town harbour. We arrived early afternoon, August 3rd, and after being asked to move once, settled in the inner harbour. We were not altogether happy with the position as it was crowded with boats but we were keen to take a look at the wonderful old town and to walk through the town to the fort which presides over the bay (see photos).

Storm #2
We did a bit of a self guided tour of the town square and then walked to the top through character laden narrow winding streets. We passed one of the older churches to the sound of nuns singing and there are loads of wine bars touting the local produce. The fort is extensive and has the most magnificent view over the town, bay and islands to the west.




From the fort Ross spotted that a boat had anchored too close to us and had bumped Manali, so we made our way calmly back down the hill. By the time we got to the tender the offending boat had moved but dark clouds were gathering so we thought it a good time to go back to the boat anyway. Many large day tripper boats and ferries had started rafting up on the town pier and the wind was starting again. The harbour master guy came by and told us we had to move as we were now too close to the ferry traffic (why he did not let us know this when we first arrived we will never know!). By now the wind was 20 knots and gusting.

After quick examination of the charts we saw that there was a possible protected anchorage on a small island just opposite the harbour so we immediately raced to it and prayed that there would be room for us. The bay was small and empty and there was just enough space for us to anchor safely, but with no room to spare. Whilst having dinner we watched other boats prowling past looking for a safe place to spend the night (including what appeared to be a floating island). The storm passed and no one tried to anchor on top of us (whew!). Ross was up and down during the night to check that all was well. In the morning we moved to another island in the very beautiful Pakleni group of islands, Otok Sveti Klement.

It is now absolutely silly season in the Croatian Adriatic. In our (mostly) trusty pilot book the authors exclaim that they counted 19 yachts at anchor in Uvala Vinogradisce, our bay. What a gorgeous spot. A few restaurants, crystal clear water, an island with walking paths and hidden bays; you could not ask for better. By the evening I had counted 50 masts and did not bother to count motor boats. We stayed a couple of nights but the end of day stress, when boats, especially the massive catamarans, anchored with gay abandon in unsafe proximity we decided it best to leave in the morning for Vis, the outermost western island in Dalmatia, in the hope that fewer people would stray that far.

Elizabeth sensibly suggested that we change from the nerve wracking boat watch channel to the beer drinking channel. What fabulous relief. We went ashore and drank the delicious local brew (Zlatorog is our favourite), a sensible distance from the boat soup below.

On Vis we anchored in the bay of the village of Komiza, August 6; another picturesque village, citadel on the town pier, Gothic church on the hill, narrow cobbled streets and an amazing array of higgledy piggledy stone houses with doors on to little piers.

Elizabeth and I took the local bus across the island to Vis town. What a treat it was to be going overland. For a moment we were even out of sight of the sea. It was obvious that the island was worthy of a few days of exploration.

Apparently, the island population of about 4,000 swells to 20,000 for the month of August, but it still remains pretty laid back and it is reasonably priced for local produce. A glass of wine at a local café on the pier front, ideal for people and boat watching, can be found for 8kn ($1.90AU). Coffee is around 6kn ($1.50AU), half litre of beer 15kn ($3.20AU). It is the marina and anchoring fees that mount up over time.

Storm #3
The first and second nights anchored in Komiza were a bit roly poly as there was a bit of a swell, some current but little wind. On the third night the wind came up from the north east (the Bora!) and the anchorage was more crowded, mostly with charterers who, notoriously, have poor anchors and anchor poorly. Ross stayed up on anchor watch for some time but the wind abated a bit and he eventually came to bed.

At 3am we were woken with a huge crunch. We had been rammed by a boat dragging its anchor. The wind was back. All hands on deck to fend off. We were most fearful that their anchor would drag into ours and tangle. Thankfully this was not the case.

After the crises had passed, we looked up and there were anchors dragging all around; one boat running into another, tangling, dragging the second boat into a third; people being woken by boats crashing into them and having no idea of what to do; boats trying to anchor 10 – 12 times over and not getting a hold; the anchor and navigation lights of over a dozen boats hovered in the dark waiting for a chance to come back in and try again. Absolute mayhem. The crazy thing was that the winds were not that strong (relatively speaking), maybe gusting to 28knots.

Elizabeth made a cup of tea (as one does after a surprise in the middle of the night) and we assessed the situation. Ross took anchor watch and Elizabeth kept him company for a while and I went to grab some sleep, which was not forthcoming with the adrenalin still racing through my veins. I must have just dropped off when Ross came down to get me. It was our turn to drag. The wind was not so intense so it was rather odd. We re-anchored and by that time there were not as many boats circling, some had rafted up at the end of the town pier, god only knows where the rest went. In the grey pre-dawn light Ross went to grab some sleep and I took the watch. The clouds over the island were dramatic and wind continued to gust but we held.
















When Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more I thought of Odysseus and his trials (thankyou Simon) and wondered what the Gods next had in store for us.

After a bit of sleep we moved to Viska Luka on the other side of the island, which was a more protected for the forecast change in wind direction and the anchor hold is known to be good. We later found out that Komiza bay is not a secure anchorage – why the local guy who collects money from you for staying there does not tell you this I don’t understand.

Elizabeth later pointed out that fending off out of control boats in the middle of the night with the inky black sea right there in front of you was not in the contract.

There were lots of good things about our new anchorage. The main town of Vis and the village of Kut are on the bay and there are cafes, restaurants, a little market with local cheeses and other produce, fish market, ferries to Split and Anacona. Clear pebbly beaches are within walking distance, as are old forts and military installations to explore, Venetian palaces and ancient gardens, nuns in white, grey, blue and black habits, holiday makers in all shapes and sizes from back packers to Croatian families to celebrities and super yachts.

Vis, the island, has an amazing history; read about some of it at http://www.tz-vis.hr/. The recent naval history over the last two hundred years is particularly fascinating.

Storm #4
After a quite night (although Ross in particular did not sleep much as a boat came in late and practically anchored on top of us) another small storm in the morning and a day taking it easy and spending some time ashore, we left Elizabeth on shore while Ross and I went back to the boat. We were to meet ashore at 7.30 for dinner.

I thought some thing might have been up as a lot of big fishing boats came in to anchor.

At 6.45 huge dark clouds formed. At 6.55 the howling storm started. The Belgian boat next to us (a single hander) started to drag and seemed to be having problems with his anchor. We had the engine on to maintain position. We dragged and then seemed to reset. The wind and rain eased a little and Ross jumped in the tender to see if the Belgian needed a hand. Alan (the Belgian) was thrilled to have someone offer help. He was okay but it did much for his morale. He came over later with a bottle of wine and we debriefed the storm together.

After re-anchoring, Ross collected the drenched Elizabeth from the shore. By 8pm we were eating cheese and biscuits and what ever we could find with Alan’s excellent Italian wine for dinner. According to Alan, the winds went to 50kts (that’s a 10 on the Beaufort scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale), the strongest we had faced to date. Apparently, in the town, people were literally running down the street screaming in story. Rain was bouncing a meter off the ground. We stayed on board for the evening.

After a restless night’s sleep, more heavy rain but no more wind, we arose early and in the morning calm refuelled, tied up to the protected Kut village quay and made offerings to the God’s to spare us. We needed water and wanted to spend a couple of days tied up to shore as Ross had not slept much for days.

We have stayed very happily here at the Kut village quay for 5 nights (thankyou Gods!). Elizabeth left on the Split ferry yesterday, very happy to have had the last few days of her stay with ready access to land. We hired a car for a day to explore the island (the view from the highest mountain is astounding, the land is covered with wild herbs, rosemary, sage, thyme…) and found an excellent restaurant where we had lamb grilled over vine embers – delicious!. Ross is looking more rested and relaxed. The locals are friendly and at dinner on the first night we met an excellent English family- Mike and Janet with their two gorgeous daughters Lucy and Rebecca and boyfriend, Tom. We have had drinks at their gorgeous apartment http://www.houseonvis.com/ and they joined us for dinner on board. Tonight, our last night we will go to a local restaurant for dinner with them. Mike has a great knowledge of the local history and it is great to get a ‘locals’ perspective. They even let us use their washing machine for a few loads of sheets and towels – what a godsend!

There is so much to tell but in a nutshell Vis is fabulous and I would highly recommend a visit.

The forecast is for mild winds, temperatures around 30 degrees for the next few days. The water is astoundingly clear.

Tomorrow morning we head off for Korcula.


Recommendations so far...

Restaurants
Split: Sperun – Brodet to die for

Vis, Kut: AS - best all but the renown Andro Slavic is closing at the end of this season to move to his island and live the quite life (hmmmm!)

Vis inland: Konoba Ferol

Best pizza: Pizza place in the middle of the bay between Vis town and Kut, next to the big building next to the church. Pizza is all that they do.

Runner up best Pizza: Biograd (http://www.tzg-biograd.hr/) Casa Vecchia

Best atmosphere in a restaurant: Komiza, Jastozera http://www.jastozera.com/ (but the food was a bit of a let down)

Best Burek: One of the pekaras (bakeries) in Trogir fresh produce market

Favourite anchorage so far: Brac Otok, Bobovisce (see pic)







And now from Ross...


Hauling Out Biograd 18/7/07
The boat had a brief breath of fresh air today. We used a 50 ton capacity travel hoist to lift it out of the water so that the propeller could be painted with anti-foul paint. This job was omitted when the boat was being commissioned and over the last couple of months the propeller has sprouted abundant marine growth of the molluscs and weed kind.

The propeller is a ‘feathering’ propeller (Kiwiprop brand – invented and manufactured in NZ – I had it shipped over. http://www.kiwiprops.co.nz/ ). The 3 blades are not metal but are of a synthetic material – the material’s appearance is somewhere between rubber and plastic. When the boat is sailing and the motor is not being used the blades twist so that just the edge of the blade is presented to the flow of the water thereby reducing the drag of the propeller through the water. It’s thought to add about a half a knot to overall boat speed when sailing.

However, these propellers need to be kept reasonably clean otherwise their ‘feathering’ action is compromised and their motoring performance suffers. So, the boat needed to come out.

At a bit more than $400 per hour to hire the travel hoist, suffice to say that if the Painters’ and Dockers’ union still existed they would have been ashamed of us – there was a virtual blurring of the hands as paint flew onto the propeller. One hour later we were back in the water. In that time the Bavaria agent in the town of Biograd, Ljubo, and I cleaned the prop using a high pressure water sprayer and applied 2 coats of antifoul – no primer or undercoat was needed.

At an ambient temperature of around 35 degrees with quite low humidity the paint dried rapidly and we got the 2 coats on in an hour and the boat back into the water – just.

The world’s seas and oceans are classified by anti-fouling paint manufacturers into high, medium or low incidence ‘fouling’ areas. The Eastern Mediterranean is a ‘high’ fouling area, the Western Med being, I think, ‘medium’. Why the difference? – I suspect something to do with water temperature, salinity and available nutrients.

In my own quiet way, I’m doing my bit to add to the heavy metal content of the Eastern Mediterranean. Flushed with the success of the antifouling I was attempting another handyman job. When leaning over the boat bolting a new minor piece of equipment to the stern, a slip of the hand resulted in yet another hand tool – in this case a ring spanner – being consigned to the deep. Of course, they don’t float. Our eighty ‘piece ‘whiz bang’ tool kit now numbers significantly less than its full complement.

In a similar vein, a couple of nights ago I was disassembling our barbecue for cleaning when I knocked a metal piece of its gas burner overboard. Now that’s not easy to replace. We were at anchor and following a split second decision I dived in after it, fully clothed and with wallet in pocket, and thankfully retrieved it from a metre or so underwater as it sank. Oh well, at least it amused Carolyn.

Summer is well and truly here. Mid to high 30 degrees each day, most days without a cloud in the sky – Southern Croatia is known for the amount of sunshine it gets each year, the city of Split particularly. It cools down a little but not a lot at night. People come into the streets to play and it’s sometimes noisy. A couple of night’s ago we were at anchor and a very loud rock band started up at midnight and played at full volume with an appreciative audience until around 3 a.m. It was a couple of kilometres away from us but the sound carried clearly across the water on this still night. ‘Raves’ (Croatian style) are apparently common. I suspect this was one of them. Of course Carolyn slept through it. Her raving days are probably over, as I suspect are mine.

On the Cusp of Magnificence – well, not quite yet. 20/7/07
We have now grounded the boat twice – both occasions in the last two days. The first incident was when we were manoeuvring the boat to be lifted out of the water by the travel lift. The tide was out; I drove the boat too far to the side of the channel when approaching and grounded on mud. We easily motored off it. No harm done.

We have a deep draught boat. The keel is 300mm deeper than the standard keel on these model boats. We purposely specified that as the boat sails better with it, however the concomitant is that it will potentially ground in water depths that a lot of other boats will be safe in.

Our second grounding incident was the following day. Having decided we needed to be proactive in gaining more experience of docking the boat in a variety of weather/wind/tide/current conditions we called into a village for a lunch stop whilst enroute to a further destination. Normally we would have just dropped the anchor in the bay but tying up at the end of the town quay looked – after a low speed drive past – just about doable for us. Depth was marginal with maybe only a couple of hundred mm under the keel. A breeze was blowing us onto the dock (not ideal but only around 5 knots so plenty of fenders should have taken care of that), Besides we wanted practice of departing from a dock that the wind is pushing you on to – basically, you ‘spring’ the bow out against the wind by initially reversing against one appropriately rigged mooring line, and then motoring forward. Of course none of this is necessary if you have a bow thruster (which we don’t have) so undertake some manoeuvres utilising the old ‘seadog’ tricks (which we don’t have either!).

All was going well with Carolyn gallantly jumping from boat to quay to secure the lines. But, as she did so we were hit with something we didn’t foresee – big waves from the wake of a ‘super yacht’ that had motored past at speed a kilometre or so away. The waves lifted us up and then dropped us down again. That, combined with the wind meant that the side of our boat was in danger of getting ground against the concrete dock. The fenders were just about coping with averting this – some minor damage sustained.

More concerning though was that as we came down off a wave, the couple of hundred millimetres of clearance we had under our keel evaporated and the keel was momentarily bottoming out on the rocks below. I can recall more pleasant sounds!

So, a snap decision was taken to abort the mission and to get the hell out of there. Luckily our ‘spring the bow out into the wind’ manoeuvre was able to be quickly rigged by Carolyn and it worked. Subsequent inspection showed that damage was limited to a scratch on the side of the hull, a dent in the toe rail and some antifoul paint lost from the bottom of the keel – it could have been worse.

Our grounding incidents were put into perspective a week or so later when we came across a small inter-island ferry with two fully laden trucks aboard hard aground on a rocky headland less than a kilometre from where we had anchored overnight – we heard nothing. They grounded to one side of the entry to the inter-island channel known as the Adriatic ‘funnel’. It is a relatively narrow channel that carries a lot of commercial shipping between the inner and outer Adriatic and most commercial vessels heading to Split ply that route. Apparently it is the busiest waterway in the Adriatic and I suspect that this particular ferry has passed through there without incident innumerable times. We can only speculate as to what happened. The weather was good. Maybe they were asleep at the wheel or they had a mechanical failure. Our grounding incidents paled into insignificance in comparison – at least we have the excuse that we are amateurs!

A very experienced sailor and boat owner in Melbourne who - before we signed on the dotted line for a new boat - gave us some erudite boat-buying advice, told me that all new yachts that are actually sailed become second hand yachts very quickly – how right he was.

And in fact, a few days later we heard of a separate ‘bad effect of boat wash’ situation, involving another boat in Split harbour that ended badly. It’s a beautiful, atmospheric city but in places a putridly smelly and very busy harbour. The town burghers have constructed a floating pontoon next to a quay located right in the heart of the historic old town for visiting yachts to tie up to. When we arrived we noticed that there were plenty of yachts anchored in the harbour but nobody tied up to the quay – even though conveniently located. We anchored and a quick ‘reccy’ over to there in the dinghy - armed with our experience of our abovementioned boat wash incident – quickly evidenced why. The harbour is a Croatian maritime transport hub. There are large and small ferries constantly coming and going. The new quay is protected from the waves and wash from some, but not all, of these ferries – and they belt in and out. So, very few, if any, boats of any size use the newly provided quay due to the wash factor. We decided to give it a big miss and to stay at anchor.

An Australian family we met there on their yacht, ‘Island Dog’, Talia, Mark and kids (www.getjealous.com/islanddog) who had been in Split for quite a while told us of an incident they witnessed with a yacht that was game (or inexperienced) enough to tie up at the new badly-positioned quay. The yacht was eventually subjected to some substantial ferry wash whilst there and crashed against the quay badly enough to hole it in the side. Had we not had our earlier experience of the hassles that big boat wash can cause we might have tied up there also – so conveniently located and all! Experience – there really is no substitute for it in this game, even though the gaining of it can involve some stress and expense.

29/7/07 We wanted adventure – we’re getting it!
Yesterday, we gained some more experience. Really, there is rarely a dull moment. After a nice sail (beam reach, 8 knots boat speed in a 13 knot breeze) from Split to the island of Brac, we anchored in a small, delightful, bay. The bay wasn’t large enough and was too deep to safely anchor in the middle of it. It was an ‘anchor with a small amount of chain out and then take a separate line ashore from the back of the boat’ situation – our first one. We dropped the anchor in the middle of the bay and motored back close to shore from where I swam ashore with two mooring ropes and tied them to large rocks – all a bit Tarzan.

The next day and a half were uneventful but after a post-lunch nap we awoke to see that the wind had come up and it was from a direction that was pushing our boat back against the shore. We were now only a couple of metres off the rocks on the shore – the depth dropped away sharply but we were still too close for comfort. So we decided to improve our situation by starting the motor and motoring forward whilst we took up some of the anchor chain to pull us further out into the centre of the bay. We did this, but the problem was that by doing so we sharpened the angle of the chain between the bow of the boat and the anchor and that tripped (freed) the anchor.

From then it all went quickly to le merde. We now had nothing restraining the front of the boat and a substantial wind pushing us back onto the shore. The motor was holding us off the shore but even with it engaged the boat was pivoting sideways on the rear mooring lines we had tied to the shore. We were now dangerously close to the rocks.

Why didn’t we just let go the rear mooring lines and motor away?? Well, I had tied the loose end of the mooring lines to the rocks rather than to the boat – not a good idea. The lines now had a lot of pressure on them and we couldn’t untie them from the boat. Jumping ashore to untie from the rocks was a potentially slow and dangerous option – you could end up between the boat and the rocks. Our Croatian neighbour was shouting to us “just leave it” – i.e. abandon your ropes and go. We wished we could! Then the maxim of ‘every sailor should always have a sharp knife in his pocket’ sprang to mind. Trouble is neither Carolyn’s sarong nor my Speedos actually have a pocket. Thankfully, there was an ultra sharp knife in the navigation table. One slash of the knife and the 20mm ropes were severed and we shot out of there under motor power, somewhat wiser and relieved that we had averted any (non-psychological!) damage.

Safely now in the middle of the small bay we contemplated losing our 50 metres or so of mooring ropes and thought, no bugger it we will go back and get them – but not by boat. So Carolyn - renowned Amazonian woman that she is - swum ashore, coiled the heavy ropes around her one at a time and swam back to the boat whilst I motored slowly around in small circles to prevent the now strong wind from blowing us ashore. Go Carolyn!

(Did I mention that I am glad that we are able to undertake this cruising/sailing thing in our forties (only just for me) and not in our fifities or even our sixties as some do? – for the obvious reason of the simple but pronounced physicality of it on the odd occasion. No yacht here is completely immune from that side of things if they choose to explore off the beaten track a bit, no matter how much money they throw at mechanising things on the boat.)

However, I digress. So, situation salvaged, we decide not to press our luck by anchoring there again and we decamped to a bay a couple of kilometres down the coast. I suspect the locals in the first bay were somewhat disappointed at that: we had been good entertainment!

A drink was in order after we safely anchored at the next bay which by chance had a lovely small village with a couple of restaurants. Over dinner we met Claire and Howard, an interesting couple (actor and theatre director respectively), holidaying from London. They are both well-travelled and thoughtful so there was plenty to talk about (they had been in some of the Tsunami affected areas of Sri Lanka that Carolyn and I visited last year. They missed by a couple of days being hit by the tsunami themselves).

So overall we survive to sail another day – more experienced!