Sailing with Balvenie - Split and Hvar, Croatia

by Amanda Church and Mark Farrell on 28 Sep 2009 Amanda Church and Mark Farrell continue their tales of sailing in the Mediterranean on their 47 ft yacht Balvenie - this week they are exploring Croatia:

As we started our journey south back down the coast of Croatia we were still experiencing a period of very settled weather, clear sunny days with temperatures in the high 20's with low 20's at night, light winds and flat seas and only sometimes an afternoon seabreeze.

Mark works very hard at trimming the sails and we manage to sail nearly all the time if at all possible. This really is my kind of sailing, with the apparent wind rarely going over 15 knots, and except for the wakes we generally have flat water. We headed back to Rogoznica, and as there were no strong winds forecast we anchored much closer to the town. We stayed 2 nights, the first night we were joined by 3 other yachts, the second around 20. Plenty of room for all and a good stopover point.

Nibbling away at the miles we kept moving every couple of days. We had a great sail in a rare seabreeze from behind and changed our intended anchorage for the night as the westerly was coming right into it and turned and headed up into a large shallow bay (in Croatia if its under 20 metres we call it shallow!) called Marina. It was a beautiful spot, only one other yacht, calm and peaceful.

The following morning we were joined by Gone with the Wind(GWTW) again, they have been having ongoing problems with their anchor windlass jamming and it was in need of urgent repairs. Only problem was in order to do this they had to remove the anchor from the chain and bring all the chain in, not such an easy feat if you are not in a Marina. So they came up alongside us and rafted to us for the day while Liam, Mark and friend Pete set about doing what blokes to best, pondering for hours on the best way to fix it and after much deliberation actually fix it. Task complete they put it all back together and anchored for the night, testing the new improvements.

Next day we both moved on to Split. You are permitted to anchor within Split harbour as long as you keep clear of all the ferry docks and marina entrance. This is somewhere you wouldn't actually mind paying as you are right downtown with great access, but they don't charge, go figure!!!
Roman centurions during the re-enactment of the Roman invasion of Split
We spent two nights there and very much enjoyed it. It was Roman festival week, with street theatre, ancient stalls - a cobbler showing the making of original roman leather sandals, a potter busy at work on his wheel, basket weaving and a variety of others, all the people dressed in toga's looking the part. There was an evening of Roman theatre set inside the ancient palace walls, with everyone dressed looking the part, while on the promenade there were stages set with opera concerts. Split was buzzing.

The walled towns in Croatia just continue to amaze us, no two are the same. What I liked most about Split was its state of disrepair. During the day it really did look dilapidated, some buildings tumbling down, it was like a big outdoor movie set of ancient ruins, but it is a working and living town.

At night it takes on a whole new image, with well thought out and placed lighting that gives it a mystical glow, it really is lovely. The harbour is pretty smelly though, but if you can cope with that then its an excellent stopover with a secure, free anchorage on the doorstep. Add to that the excellent daily market, closeby supermarket, pizzerias and gelatos stalls - it shouldn't be missed.

As much as we were enjoying Split it was time to move on, we headed south east to the southern side of Brac and the little anchorage of Lucice. It was crowded already with yachts on moorings but both Balvenie and GWTW managed to squeeze into a shallow patch we found and had a comfortable enough night.

Next we had a good sail again with light winds to the next island of Hvar.

We planned to anchor a couple of miles away from the main town and try to bus in to visit. This was the place on our way north that looked to be totally crazy with bumper to bumper boats so we thought best to give the main anchorage a miss. As we closed in on it though, it didn't look too bad so we took a little detour in, had a snoop around, found reasonable depths to anchor in a good spot so dropped anchor and settled in.

Having secured our parking spot, we sat back and watched with amusement as the afternoon's armada arrived. There really was just too much going on around us to go ashore so we just cracked the bar open, sat back and got ready to fend off the odd boat that really did get that close!!!

Describing it as busy and overcrowded is totally inadequate, it was manic but by about 7.30pm there were only a couple more late runners on the horizon so we decided it was safe enough to leave Balvenie alone and head ashore for a look around.

Every one of these old towns is different and all have been amazing, Hvar certainly was no exception. With one of the largest town squares in Croatia there is a huge arena overflowing with outdoor cafes and stalls selling anything from local artwork to the dried lavender the island is famous for. It is a beautiful place with a horseshoe shaped harbour, tiny local fishing craft crammed into one side and some seriously large super yachts fender to fender on the other, the display of wealth is overwhelming.

We returned to Balvenie just before a light evening breeze off the land filled in. It was time for some of the charter boats to go walkabout again, luckily for all concerned there were no unmanned boats involved. Boats were re anchoring and dragging again, lifting other boats anchors and getting in a tangle, all in no more than 12knots of wind - much entertainment. Once everyone was settled, and when the super yacht tenders stopped ferrying the rich and famous backwards and forwards the anchorage calmed down and we managed a good sleep.

Next morning most of the boats had left by 9am, leaving just a handful so we decided it was safe enough to leave Balvenie without fear of someone pulling her anchor out while we weren't onboard. We went ashore and picked our way up through the maze of tiny streets to the Fortress Spanjol perched high above the town with a stunning vista out over the surrounding islands and the sparkling seas of the Adriatic.

The present day structure was built to defend the town from Turkish invasion, since then the Austrians and the Venetians have had turns occupying it, along with several others. It was worth the 20kuna entry fee to stroll around and enjoy the vista. Back down in the town square while enjoying a coffee and people watching we noticed a sign for an 'Evening of Opera' that evening at 9pm in the Franciscan Citadel, we checked the weather forecast and things looked calm and settled so we decided to chance it and stay another night.

By 7pm it was full on chaos again, by 8pm more boats were dragging - mmmmm only 10 knots this time, we are not sure if some of the charterers know that the anchor needs to not only touch the bottom but that you then should put more chain out, make sure it is dug in, then more chain, then just to be sure put some more out!!! By 8.30pm everyone was settled and it looked safe enough to leave, so we did the med thing and put all our fenders out and went ashore - if you can't beat them - join them.

The opera was fabulous, we are not opera buffs but appreciate most live music especially seated in an enclosed stone courtyard setting, vines clawing down the weathered stone walls, just perfect. There was one Croatian, two Slovenians and one Canadian performer. They were all excellent and for 50kuna each it was an excellent evening out.

We always love t