Croatia No 2

Hello Again

 

First many many thanks to all who have written of late to keep us up to date with what has been happening with you.  Love getting your news.

 

Well a few more miles have been covered and lots of interesting places have been visited since our last letter went out.  We left you in Split – Middle Croatia.  From there we sailed towards Trogir, stopping off for a night in a delightful bay towards the north western end of the Island of Ciovo.  This was the first time since arriving in Croatia that we were able to anchor in sand – wonderful holding.  We could see the anchor well dug in at 11mt.  The water temperature was 27.7 degrees so swimming was a must.  Then it was on to Trogir. Here we were to wait for Wendy and her boat ‘Selinaris’ who had sailed into the Red Sea with us.  She was dropping off a crew member and picking up another, both who were also on that Red Sea trip, and with whom we wanted to catch up with again. Kerry from Wales. This time he had his wife Pam with him, they were leaving the boat, and Wendy’s partner John joined the boat.  It was a fun catch up time.

 

Croatia No.1

Hello Again

 

Croatia, what a night to remember !!!   We arrived at  6 PM at a small town called Cavtat.  Cavtat is just 8 miles south of the old walled city of Dubrovnik. Dropped anchor in 6 meters of water amongst a dozen or so yachts in a nice big bay.  Jumped into our tender and off to check in. Very efficient but rather expensive.  Navigation fees, light dues, Govt. admin fee, chart and cruising permit for 3 months, a total of  NZ $ 400.  Back to Shamal on dusk at 8.30 pm.  The dreaded Bora  wind starts to increase.   The Bora ( Katabatic mountain wind ) is a “ speciality “ of the eastern Adriatic coast and can be very dangerous. It can blow with sudden NE gusts.  The wind by 10 pm is now increasing to 25 Kts  so the skipper decides to put more anchor chain out.  Another 10 meters so now we will have 45 in total. As the chain was going out we started dragging  and got rather too close to a yacht moored behind us.  An Italian yacht next to us also was dragging. Several yachts were also trying to re anchor which made for a very busy bay.  So up anchor and out of here !!!  But we also lifted the anchor of the yacht behind us.  Now the wind is 35 kts.  If that wasn’t bad enough we were towing him to our new anchorage !!!  Alec wondered why at 2600 rpm Shamal was only making 1 kt into the headwind. I took the helm while Alec managed to drop the other yachts  anchor.  Really surprising nobody came on deck of the yacht that we were towing being  totally oblivious to the drama that was unfolding.   Now at midnight, after being at our new anchorage for two hours, we again started dragging - bugger !!!  We wanted to go to bed.  Finally we re anchored again in deeper water,  15 meters, amongst  the Super Yachts. 

Corfu - Albania - Montenegro

Hello to You All Again

Well what an interesting month July turned out to be.  On Friday 13^th while we were still in Corfu I flew out and left my cousin Simon and his wife Kay with Alec while I went off to Dubai to help Brigitte pack up her apartment and get everything into storage.  Dan had already left for the States where he was doing a flight rating ( Dash 8 ) followed by a job to get his flying hours up.  The plan at this stage is for Dan to return to Abu Dhabi by the end of the year and for Brigitte to follow when the twins are old enough to travel.  Alec and I plan to fly out to the States and help her take them back to Abu Dhabi.  Plan A !!!!