The Dalmation Islands, including the party island of Hvar!

10^th departure to Mijet. We gave Steven a sample of our 14 hour crossing to Brindisi, beating against a force 5 and a swell against us. Just made it to the southern tip of Mijet before darkness and were grateful to see a nice chappie in a dinghy coming out to us to offer us a buoy for the night, free, well if we ate in their restaurant it was !  Given it was 8.30pm and we were all shattered, it seemed like a no brainer and he even said he would come and pick us in his dinghy, well that clinched it! Lovely dinner, fab fish, good wine, retired to bed a little merry, although we managed not to fall off the dinghy getting back on to the yacht !

On the 11^th we departed to go round the bottom of the island 20 miles (in a straight line) up to Polace, still on Mijet and had a fabulous sail, although we were still beating into the NW winds, it was only a force 4 with flat seas, and we tacked a few times at 8 knots to arrive at 5 in the afternoon. Polace is a beautiful anchorage, at the far end of a long inlet and protected by four wooded islands lying in its approach. It is renowned for its walks through stunning scenery over to its salt lakes, but as we were a bit pushed for time to meet Sam (Steven’s mate), David and I had decided to return here on our way back and spend a few days exploring the island properly. As quiet as it was, we still had two other yachts that knew each other, they were about 50 metres apart and close to us, but they had long conversations shouting across at each other to be heard, why they couldn’t have simply all got on the same boat was beyond us.

Polace, Mijet

On the 12^th we headed for Korcula, and dropped anchor in a bay and took the dinghy into town, I have to say we got a little wet from the spay in the process, but soon dried off having moored up to take a lovely stroll, have a light lunch and found our favourite chocolate fondente ice cream. Fortunately the wind had dropped so the return journey was a lot drier.

Otok Korcula

We then spent the night on board, wine flowing, playing eye spy, normally a boring game but made more entertaining by the wine.

On the 13^th July we set sail for the north-west point of Korcula, A South East force 4 meant we could get the spinnaker out for the first time this trip.There was only minimal fading of the colours, so it still looked pretty spectacular, right up to the point where we needed to furl it in and managed to lose the top of the holding plate, but apart from having to order a new one, there was no damage done, although Chantal has managed to reduce the size of her bingo-wings by manually pulling it, with some help from the boys !

and we finally settled in for a night on anchor at a place called “Sveti Ivan“, or as the boys called it Sweaty Ivan, very apt as it was a very hot night!.

On the 14^th , with no wind we motored  the 25 miles to the Island of Vis, hooked up to a mooring buoy and took the dinghy in to visit the lively seaside town, crammed with flotilla yachts on the public quay, we sat having a drink watching a bun fight over the last few remaining places.

Otok Vis

On our return to the dinghy we however found the the bowline missing, and a tampered lock…. Luckily we had locked it as we might have returned to find no dinghy at all! However it took 10 mins of patiently working the lock to finally get it working, otherwise we were looking at one of us swimming back to the boat to get the bolt cutters, that would have been Steven, aka Marine Boy! Sadly however, we woke up the following morning to a sorry looking dinghy with one side pretty flat, clearly the attempted theft had caused a puncture somewhere. As we left the bay, we came across what looked like about 30 yachts in one flotilla on their way into Vis, phew did we leave on time!

Still no wind, so we motored 13 miles to Otok Marinkovac, just off the island of Hvar, with glorious turquoise waters, and chilled out.

Come 4pm, we were highly entertained as the bay started to get busier and busier with all manner of boats trying to find a space to anchor, some successfully, and some pushing their luck and having to move again when they swung too close to their neighbour.

David also donned his red cape and came to the rescue of the some British girls who had hired a little speedboat, clearly without any instructions, and having stopped off for a swim near us, were then unable to restart the engine;. We tied them onto us and David jumped aboard.. they had been trying to start it with the throttle on full!!, thank god they didn’t manage to!

On the 16^th, we decided to go and check out how busy the harbour was at the popular party Island of Hvar:-

Very glad we didn’t anchor off there, with the water taxis zooming in an out every 20 mins until 5 am! We then, once again, you got it, had no wind, so motored  17miles to Milna on the Island of Brac and stopped off on the quay for a couple of hours whilst David went to do some provisioning and Steven and I got the puncture repair kit out. With the dingy fixed, we then left for the Island of Solta, and dropped anchor again in the most idyllic waters

and again watched the race to moor in whatever patch of water was available just before sundown. The view was only partially ruined by the sight of the worst coloured boat we had ever seen!

and if anyone can explain this mast/boom configuration, we would be grateful:-

We were also somewhat amused to see a number of goats on the island (uninhabited!) .. not sure quite how they got there! You’re kidding right !!  Marine Boy also managed to acquire a fly away Lilio from a charter yacht, that clearly couldn’t be bothered to get it back, so Steven swam, and swam, and then swam some more to to be able to grab it and bring it back to the yacht.

On 17th, after the hottest night ever, it must have been 100 degrees with no air, each cabin being a sweatbox, we woke at dawn…

and then, inching our way closer to Trogir and Split to meet with Sam on the 18^th, we motored (again) 9 miles to the island of Drvenik and dropped anchor there, for some more chilling before setting off for Trogir on the 18^th to meet Sam.