First off, I call this post “Sailing – Croatia Edition”, not because I have done heaps of sailing to tell you about, but because this was my first time living on a yacht for a week and I absolutely loved it. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be future sails..
Sailing the Med
So, NINE of us signed up to go sailing together on our own yacht with MedSailors around the Croatian Islands.
Our sail went from Split to Solta to Vis to Parmizana (Hvar) to Korcula to Stari Grad to Milna (Brac) and back to Split.
Here’s a map from the MedSailors website showing our route:
My friend was one of the yacht skippers of MedSailors at the time so we requested him to be our skipper but were given his rowdy friend Schlurm the Party Worm as our skipper instead.
Shortly after meeting Schlurm, he made us all drink Schlurm Juice – a highly alcoholic concoction that he came up with!.. From then on we knew it was going to be a fun week!
Day 1 Sesula, Solta
Just after lunch we set sail, bound for our first island destination of Solta.
The immediate excitement to be sailing took over all of us and we were straight out to the front of the boat to huddle in the breeze together and talk about how awesome it was to be sailing in Croatia! A pinch me moment!
We didn’t reach Solta until the sun was starting to go down, so there was not much exploring we could do here. A few of the group took the opportunity to frollick in the waters for a little while – some of us decided to be the photogahpers 🙂
However, the plan was for each of the 8 boats sailing together to have a nice dinner at the restaurant up the side of the cliff.
Dinner in Solta
As the sun set, our group of ten (with Schlurm) chatted about what was in store for the week ahead over cocktails and tried some Solta delicacy food. Four of us shared a ‘paella’ type dish which featured actual small octopus. Each of us received our own miniature octopus sitting atop the paella.
Everyone absolutely raved about how wonderful the meal was, but I found my octopus to be undercooked and really difficult to chew – so the meal was slightly disappointing for me.
However, in that setting it was a pretty good start to our week in Croatia!
Day 2 Vis
Nudeys
I woke up early in Solta and sat on deck to watch the sun rise.
I was contemplating taking an early morning swim before the rest woke up, until I realised there were numerous sets of people from other boats all skinny dipping!
My game plan changed and I was now more interested to watch them all doing backflips off the boat into the cool morning water and squealing once they popped their heads out of the water.
I realised, this water is probably a bit too cold for my liking!
On to Vis
After breakfast we began our sail to Vis. Our day sails during the trip usually took anywhere from 2 hours to 4 hours to get to the next island.
This was fine by me – means napping on deck in the sun, life is perfect.
Upon reaching Vis, it was one heck of a town to arrive to! It looks like a massive island with all of the trees and nature, with a little town on the waters edge.
I thought sailing was going to be the best thing about our day, but then we saw Vis Island and it instantly got better!
Moped Life
Once on Vis, we hired mopeds from a gruff & rude Croatian lady. She was so nasty to us that it became so hilarious at how serious we were all trying to act in front of this lady, that we were stifling our laughter, trying to stop it from spurting out of our mouths!
She didn’t trust us to take riding the mopeds seriously and thought we looked like the types to want to trash her bikes.
We rode around the mountain chasing each other and taking in some epic views until we reached a gorgeous movie-setting-looking town where we all had pizzas for lunch.
It turned out pizza seems to be everywhere in Croatia. It sure could even be their National food – they are bloody good at making it, that’s for sure!
An evening in Vis
After we turned our mopeds back in, it was time for the first real chance to meet people from the other 7 boats travelling with us, by having a party in a park, with an alcoholic punch supplied by the MedSailors team.
One we were a little sauced, we dragged our skipper out for dinner and then he dragged us to a skanky bar for a few drinks.. Schlurm made us get shots that were set on fire and completely awful! It might as well have been straight petrol.
Day 3 Hvar/Parmizana
Upon docking at the small island on Parmizana, we had some time to hang out before our ‘big night out’ on Hvar Island – well known for being a great place to party on the Croatian islands..
An Engagement Party
Two of our yacht mates got engaged before the Croatian sail so we had a secret plan to hold an engagement party on Hvar.
After having a couple casual beers on deck, and watching (perving) one of the more attractive yacht skippers have an outdoor shower, we started the festivities!
Katy Perry made a speech for the couple and we finally cracked open the secret bottle of champagne we had stored on the boat for our toasts to the happy couple. Passing the champagne around, we each took a gulp! Bubbles always get me into a good mood!
We jumped on a ferry-service boat to take us to Hvar for dinner and our party night, already quite hammered.
We quickly found a bar to continue drinking cocktails in, which was probably not our greatest idea because we were far drinker than we actually realised.
Our skipper dragged us out of the bar and to a dinner reservation for the group where we seemed to only yell instead of speak. Classic trait of a group of drunks.
At some point during our night, I lost everybody and began wandering Hvar alone looking for my friends! During the course of 3 hours, I found a fantastic piano bar not far from the moorings which had a great singer doing a set when I walked up to it. What was meant to be a quick ‘are my friends here’ look-around became an hours stop singing along and making temporary new bffs!
The Horror
Once it got quite late, I found the last taxi boat back to Parmizana, right as it was about to leave! This is when a storm of storms began and the journey back to Parmizana was anything but stable. It felt like I was going to die.
To set the scene, with 6 of us on the boat, we were driving through rains that were coming at us from all sides and a million different angles. The roof and front window of the boat where we were huddled was leaking, but not droplets – it was GUSHING water all over us and the driver.
Visibility was zero. And the wind was so strong, the driver had his steering wheel turned 180 degrees to the left but we were going straight-ish.
Needless to say, apart from the driver, us passengers were all shitting ourselves and crying a little.. we thought it was the end.
I tried to buck up and help the driver. I had him give me a super quick run down of where we were going and what faint glimmer of a light colour we were looking for – a green one. I helped him read the dials on his dashboard as the water was gushing over it all making it hard to read, and our driver was just going on instinct.
Eventually, after what was the most harrowing 10-15 minutes of my life, I spotted the green light, so barely that I had to ask (yell to) my captain,
“THERE! GREEN! IS THAT THE GREEN LIGHT?!”
He then followed the green lights and we began feeling a wee bit safer. Once he pulled into the Parmizana docks, he thanked me for my help and I thanked him for getting us there alive. I then jumped off the boat and ran to my yacht for cover from the torrential down pour. I finally felt safe.
The following morning, I tried to explain what had happened to my friends on-board, but I don’t think it meant much because it kind of sounds far-fetched since they had not seen the bad weather out on the open water.
A Surprise Lagoon
As the sun was shining down on us in the gorgeous island of Parmizana, we went for a wander and happened upon this absolutely stunning lagoon.
How is it possible that amongst such beauty, you continually find MORE beauty?!
Thoughts from my first three days sailing
Sleeping on a yacht has its perks, you get rocked to sleep every night and you wake up and your view at breakfast is the glistening waters.
Then there’s the negatives too; not REALLY being able to shower unless you dock at a place with public showers. But if that’s the worst sailing has got to offer, I’ll take those negatives!
Three more days of the week sailing the Croatian Islands will feature in my ‘part two’ post!
I created a video of my week sailing around Croatia with the Magisto App, watch it here: Croatia Sail Video
Have you sailed the Croatian Islands?
Australian expat, married to a Dutch guy, living in Amsterdam. Previously lived in London for 3 years, too! Lover of travel, coffee, brunch, beaches, fresh flowers, and family. Now a new mum, navigating life with a baby!
0 thoughts on “Sailing – Croatia Edition (Part 1)”
Hey Guys, Nice Blog!