Week 19: Croatia

Croatia

Well what can I say, we were about to head off on the biggest party week of the tour surrounded by bright blue waters, passengers mostly of Aussie and Kiwi background, with 2 Irishmen and an Englishman amongst us, beer on tap on the boat & flotation devices. As I’m not 100% sure in what order we visited the islands along the way on our trip from Dubrovnik to Split, I’m just going to talk about them as they’ve come to mind.

Now it should be said, although it’s called “Sail” Croatia, 99.9% of the time we were motoring to our destinations. We were lucky enough to get brekkie (if we were up in time) and lunch, which was always a 3-4 course meal provided by Cooky, the cook and usually hit the spot so as we only needed a small dinner if at all. It was awesome, not to mention the character that went with the chef! There were many bays, we passed and stopped at along the way to allow for deserted swimming spots where we could rule the roost, but I have no idea what the names of these places were. All I know is that Nevio made sure we had a beautiful few hours swimming time every single day in a gorgeous bay. We were free to snorkel, dive off the boat (or flop as some people did) do a group back flip off the second level, more or less whatever we wanted! Made for the best wake up time every day, lunch and swimming in the beautiful ocean with shenanigans, then a siesta on the way to our docking point late every afternoon. Was simply perfect! Now for the stories....

Our first night was spent at a place that I can’t remember the name of! It was a deviation from the initial itinerary due to the weather (the first day was windy and overcast) when we set off. So we arrived at this small island not too far from Split where there was a party night/festival to raise money for the Split football team. So we arrived mid afternoon, were able to have our first swim in the blue waters, first jump off the roof of the boat (a solid 8m+ or so) and then were let off to explore whilst the captain docked up. We were to experience the docking sensation on many occasions, frequently with up to 8 boats all lined up together. This means, you wanted to be on the outside so you didn’t have swarms of people running through your boat.

Croatians love to shake a tail feather and this night was no different, there was the Croatian equivalent of Mick Jagger up on stage shaking his thing and singing famous Croatian tunes as the locals were going nuts. Body shirt, tight white pants and all the strut of a rock superstar, this guy seemed like the real deal and he was on stage for a very very long time...what an animal! Combine that with cheap drinks, fireworks and lots of singing and dancing Croats, it was an awesome night. We had a captain’s dinner , complete with the home brewed unlimited shots of Schnapps, well lubricated we met an a bunch of awesome people on the other boats, including Edyta, or Eds a kiwi air hostess that we would not unfortunately see until we got to Split. I was lucky enough to dance to Croatian Mick’s tunes with her and indulge in Croatia’s finest beverages.

Milljet is an island which is home to a beautiful national park, with a monastery, ”inland” lake and walking tracks through the bush as well as a lot of quaint restaurants and scooter hire places. Now Gerry deserves a solo mention at this stage, if you’ve seen dumb and dumber, then you’ll be aware of the fact that you can literally shagpile carpet a van and make it look like a dog, well they did the same to a scooter and the man from Ireland was on it like a fat kid on a cupcake....tearing up the island. This was the first of many shenanigans to come....Meanwhile, I had a bout of mild sinusitis set in with the sun, 3 weeks of drinking, little sleep and eating questionably will do that to you. I was out early trying to shake it for the rest of the week! Thank god, the pain subsided the next morning and just flu set in, when you have warm weather and salt water all around, isn’t too bad to cope with!

Korcula is the home or birthplace of the infamous Marco Polo the explorer (and potentially the kid’s favourite pool game.....Fish outta water!); it’s a great little town, which reminded me a lot of Santorini’s main town. Similar architecture. We were out that night at the red bull bar, near the markets, where they don’t serve red bull; they serve another cheaper energy drink called “burn”....go figure. Was somewhat surprised when someone told me Mark was talking to my brother.... Was pretty surprised to see Adrian and his lovely girlfriend Sharon in Korcula, he’d been to Wimbledon and was living the high life in the Croatian islands for a few weeks. Was great to catch up with the kid, he gave some good advice on Hvar....being “get ready”, as that was our next stop! Mark had a big night with the rest of the crew from the boat and funny stories were found out the next day.

Hvar , what can I say? It lived up to all expectations.... we met up with Glenn and Sarah randomly and they joined the rest of the crew for dinner and drinks. There was an absolutely crazy beachside bar, with public nudity, cheap drinks, funky tunes and crazy Tequila bottle sculling bartenders in attendance and a shot which required you to wear a helmet whilst you were repetitively hit on the head whilst drinking. Sounds like fun yeah? From there to a ritzy club, that made me feel way outta place with VIP areas etc. After months of cruisy backpacker bars, was a rude awakening. That was the end of my night, but the majority of the kids went out, acquired a little foam lizard “Lizzy” and continued to tear up Hvar until the sun was up in the morning. Few sore heads were met the next morning, day and afternoon!

Bol probably my favourite island, it had a great little old town, nice bars and restaurants and markets lining the coast as you walked around the shores. Wasn’t too crazy and had a rooftop cinema on top of one of the waterfront building. We went out to watch Bruno, with the whole boat crew...now that is an experience unto itself and not for the weak stomached. If I can say this island is beautiful after watching this movie, it is definitely something special.

Makarska , if Hvar was the loosest venue, this place comes a very close second. This place was buzzing, full of people, locals and otherwise, the beach on the other side of the island from where we were docked had all the toys anyone could want and it was bloody boiling, so the ocean was number one on the priority list. With a close second being the jet ski’s Mark and I hired, top speed of about 90kn/h+ We headed off round the island a little bit and getting a blow dry! Anyone who says that jet skiing is easy, is right, despite our best efforts, playing chicken with each other and hitting the waves from boats and swell at full speed we couldn’t get thrown off the jet skis....bit of a bummer really. However, probably worse, we could barely walked the next few days due to the Quads and thighs being tighter than a bungie cord when stretched out! (Maybe a slight exaggeration), aside from this, there was a massive cliff that overlooks the harbour inlet with several jump rocks that we saw on the way in, with the local young dare devils jumping off the highest point, Mark and I went to check it out with Dave, Monique & Michelle. This young kid with a rat’s tail was bailing off the top of the cliff, about 20m or so into the water, similar to the pros in Bosnia of the infamous bridge, but without needing the encouragement of money to do so. Myself, Mark and Monique headed down to the lower ledge at about 12m above the water, which still made the hairs on my arms stand on edge! After alot of encouragement (not too much) I convinced Mon to jump after Mark and I had. Mark and I went for round 2, where sparkles just up and dove off without any hesitation....crazy kid he is.

Makarska is also home to the cave night club, which is a bar that is inside and outside of a cave on the water. Was a young crowd to say the least and a few of the older gents on the trip were rather impressed. However the majority of the crew were from bus about boats! Once again, I had an earlier night than sparkles, got up in the morning to hear the stories, funniest of which was in regards to a sea urchin.... Mark had trodden square on one and instead of trying to get it sorted that night, his answer was simply to indulge in a pain killer and antiseptic being in the liquid form.

Split was our last destination, our final port of call after a great week making new mates, having a ball in a beautiful part of the world and indulging in all the finer things in life, good food, good drink and good company. Split itself is a large town that has a major old town with a series of underground passageways that are still in existence and which you can visit. There are old ruins and massive churches and a beach on the opposite side to the port that was beautiful.

Split was full of surprises, firstly, Mark and I on the way to the internet, randomly bumped into Eds again so she joined us for ice cream and the internet. Eds and I ventured over to find somewhere to swim as it was about 35c+ in Split, we found a little “beach”, a concrete semi circle with stone bottom, but the water was awesome, pity about all the old blokes with budgie smugglers on and rugs on their backs. But hey, what can you do? The water was worth every minute of it! We saw a stage being set up, there was to be a Reggae concert overlooking this huge bay that night, so the plan was made to head back for that later. My only regret for the last night is missing most of the performance by Nevio, Magla and Bryan on the deck of the boat that evening.... but as I’d bumped into Dave Olive and Nick Mason from back home and wasn’t going to see either of them for a very long time, I made the decision to head to the Reggae concert and try to meet up with them whilst there. Bummer is, we couldn’t find them, but Eds and I had a great night dancing and drinking watching the Reggae boys do their thing! What a night!

Well the last day on the boat was full of farewells and hellos and farewells as we all parted, then caught up again whilst waiting around for our transport out of split, or rooms to be ready, or just sightseeing.

What an awesome week. Hope to meet up with you all at some stage in the future; unfortunately it will probably need to be in oz or around as I won’t be travelling for quite some time! So drop me a line. Round 2 has already been suggested, I’m still keen for a repeat at some stage if you guys are, just maybe the Whitsundays instead?

Mark and I were off on a long, long train journey to Prague, once again an overnight train, albeit less painful then the way down. It was still a struggle after a week of partying, little sleep etc. We were off to the city infamous for cheap beer, Bavarian meals, awesome nightlife and beautiful scenery, combined with a deep, rich and interesting history. Prague was going to be fun and interesting!

With that in mind, I bid you adieu and will try to get up to date shortly.

Cheers,

Guy