Croatia. July - August 2009.

John's birthday; a man on the cactus; "Man overboard!"

Boat Diary

Old Fort in Trogir

Part 1

Today is the eighth day of our boat trip in the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. Last night we strayed on a big island called Zut, which has a big marina with a shop, restaurants, toilets and showers but no town. Zut Island is a part of the Karnati Islands National Park, which is famous for its moon landscapes (very little or no vegetation). Our crew consists of six people: Peter’s sister Ruth, her husband John, his sister Sandy, Alan – Sandy’s husband, Peter and me.

But I will start from the beginning.

Our journey started in the town Zadar located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. We flew there from Edinburgh. Zadar is a relatively big town with a very impressive old town, included in the UNESCO world heritage list. The town is also famous for its Sea Organ – a construction consisting of a complicated system of pipes under the rocky shore and holes, through which wind is blowing, which produces music-like sounds.

Peter and I had 2 days to wait for Ruth and the others so we decided to explore another UNESCO listed sight – Plitvice National Park. It is located inland, on the way from Zadar to Zagreb (Croatia’s capital).

After a long and tiring 3-hour bus trip we finally reached a small ski resort near the park, where our accommodation had been booked. Next day we went to the park. We did a 5-hour walk around incredibly beautiful lakes, waterfalls and streams with extremely clean and clear water of most amazing blue color with hundreds of different fish.

The next day we had to go back to Zadar and from there catch another bus to Trogir, where we were meeting with Ruth and John and starting our boat trip.

Our yacht is called “Sugar Daddy”. It a sailing yacht, which also has a motor. So when there is no wind we start the motor. Below the deck there are three sleeping compartments, a kitchen, sitting room and two toilets with showers.

There are approximately 300 different-size islands in the archipelago. Some are big and have one or several towns on them and some are small and uninhabited. John and Alan have decided to go north of Trogir as they had not explored that area yet. Peter and I didn’t mind, as we have never been anywhere. We start sailing about 10 or 11am each day, sail for about 4 or 5 hours and then park in a port to spend a night there. Although two nights we parked in the little bays near the shore. For situations like that there is a small motorboat, which you can paddle or drive to the shore.

Boat diary.

Old Church in Tribunj town and rocky islands of Adriatic Sea.

Part 2.

What do I think of Croatia? I think it is an amazingly beautiful and exotic country. I love the little towns with narrow streets, crooked passages, little kitchen gardens attached to the houses. It reminded me of the comedy “Diamond Arm” (“Briliantovaya Ruka”). The climate is dry and hot in summer and cool and humid in winter. The Adriatic coast is subtropical so the winter is very mild there. The islands are steep and rocky covered with shrubs and mostly olive and fig trees. There are no beaches anywhere so people sunbathe on the rocks. There are a lot of tourists from Germany, Italy, Britain, Russia, whom the locals are happy to have back as during the civil war in the 1990s the tourism industry decreased.

There are small markets where you can buy local produce of fruit (peaches, melons, nectarines, figs, plums), vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, potatoes, eggplants) and olive oil. Peter and I went out a few times for dinner and ate on the boat the rest of the time. I think the most exotic dish I tried was a calamari ink risotto (a rice dish slowly cooked with white wine and stock, served with seafood, chicken and vegetables and in my case with calamari ink). The color was black (because of the ink) and the taste was strong and fishy but delicious. Also we ate a lot of locally made ice cream, which was the only thing that was cheaper than in Australia.

This is the end of the trip. During these two weeks, we went about 100km up North of the cost and then back to Trogir. Surprisingly, we did not get seasickness as much as we thought we would. Only on the last three days the weather was very windy so we took seasickness tablets but didn’t get very sick.

Streets in Croatia's island towns

Somewhere in Croatia

"Sugar Daddy"

Croatia. July - August 2009

Beautiful National Parks:
1,2 and 4 - Plitvice Lakes NP
3 - Skradinski Buk waterfall at Krka NP

St Petersberg. July 2009.

Inside the Winter Palace (Hermitage); "white nights" (believe me or not, the picture was taken at 10pm; and a bridge with winged lions at Griboedov's Canal.

Petrodvorets.

There are approximately 150 fountains and a beautiful palace in Peter's summer residence about 29km from the city.

St Petersberg. July 2009.

Winter Palace.
Church of the Survivor on Blood and Griboedov's Canal.

At my mum's house. June 2009.

Peter, Inna and Peter's shashlik.

Kharkov. June 2009.

Celebrating our arrival to Kharkov with my family, and my friends Tanya, Pasha and their doughter Nastya.

Kiev. Museum Pirogovo. June 2009.

Sasha on the cherry tree.

Kiev. Pirogovo -Museum of Ukrainian National Architecture and Folk. June 2009

Lviv

Inna, Sasha, Peter and me in the cemetery; panoramic view of the Lviv's Old Town; Ukrainians looking into the future; Lviv's Opera Theatre.

Newcastle

We are now living in England in the northern city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My sister lives here in a very old house. The weather is crappy and has been like this since we got here over a week ago. It’s about fifteen degrees Celsius outside, grey with a little drizzle. This is similar to Brisbane in winter but it’s the middle of summer here.

I have nothing interesting to write about as I have been mostly lying in bed, eating a lot. Before this I had the ‘flu for a few days and did nothing much except every few hours change my body temperature from very high to very low.

On Sunday we drove somewhere for an hour, then walked through the countryside, along a muddy trail, then climbed a hill and then climbed down again. The dog loved it. Along the walk there was a big pine forest that had been recently cut down to make into tissues and cardboard and there were broken trees everywhere. My sister Ruth’s dog loves fetching sticks, so it must have been like heaven for the dog. He found a fallen tree and wanted to play fetch with the tree. He tried to pull the tree along with us, but cut his mouth on the tree instead. The dog has a high pain threshold - even though he was cut quite badly and bleeding, he was happy again a minute later.

The dog also likes water. A few days before we went walking near a lake and there was a big boom net in the water. The dog thought the little buoys were balls and tried to fetch one out of the water. He swam out to it – Ruth shouted at him to leave it but he wanted the ball and wouldn’t listen. His leg got caught in the net. I thought there would be trouble but when he knew he was caught the dog just stopped and looked at us from the water. There was almost a question on his face – “OK I messed up – can you help me out?” Ruth waded in and untangled him. He’d forgotten all about it a minute later and wanted to fetch the ball again.

English society is advanced – not just technologically but ethically advanced. You can tell this is true when you go to the supermarket. Nearly all of the eggs on sale are free range as is most of the chicken. In Australia only some of the eggs and chicken are free range. Lots of the vegetables say “organically grown”. Many of the other things say “fair trade” on them. It feels good to live in a society where people care about such things.

It’s getting near the end of a long holiday. We are both tired from traveling but we have one last adventure left. We are going on a sailing holiday in Croatia. Tomorrow we are taking the train to Edinburgh and then flying to Zadar in Croatia. Two weeks later we are returning to Australia.

Milan

Il Duomo Cathedral, which took 500 years to build. Piazza Duomo and an old fort.