Rovinj to Sukosan
Posted at 8:04 PM, Oct. 9, 2007
Saturday can only be described as a bad day on board Savarna – the AB’s beaten! All I can say is that I am glad I am not in NZ as the papers, TV and Murray Deaker will be going for blood! I did see that Jock Hobbs announced the NZ Rugby Board are going to conduct an enquiry why we lost. I can tell them the answer quite concisely – we coach the intuition out of the players (when they use GPS’s fixed to players arms in training to evaluate who went where and why tells me that). I also wonder about the average IQ – how many players can think for themselves after being coached to respond in a prescribed manner.
Anyway enough of the World Cup – Fiji did well and on board we are backing the Springboks for a southern hemisphere win.
Currently motoring the final 45 miles into Sukosan. After arriving into Rovinj in Istria early evening Friday we anchored off for the night and then went onto the Customs wharf to complete the clearance formalities. I think it took longer to arrive in this time than it did when we arrived initially back in May at Dubrovnik. We availed ourselves of the wharf facilities for a few hours and had a look around the town and lunch at a local café. It is a lovely town and very much like Primosten in that it is a town built on a headland with the buildings right to the waters edge all around the perimeter. Unlike Primosten it is not quite an island and nearby the main bay is attractively finished with walks, a sandy beach, nice hotels etc so we can well see why this area is so attractive to visitors from adjoining countries.
Late Saturday afternoon we headed southwards planning to go down the coast to the town of Pomer (about 25 miles) at the bottom tip of the Istrian peninsula. Headed off with storm clouds to the north which soon overtook us giving us heavy rain (only the second instance of daytime rain since we have been here this trip) and 30 knots on the beam. Fast but very wet sail – for me at least on the wheel!
Wet day on the handlebars
Anchored off in the large bay with Pomer at its head – pretty shallow so we were well off the town and got an overdose of wind all night. Not bad though as it is the one and only rough night we have had.
Sunday with the wind a steady 40 knots we headed SE for a 30 mile run back to Mali Losinj. Fine day but a solid heavy wind so relatively a lot more pressure than the previous day - we had about 20 miles across open water and then in the lee of several islands. Wind started at about 60 degrees apparent, climbing high on course to put some in the bag, so fast sailing with two reefs and about 40% of the self tacker out. About half way across the wind went back another 10 degrees which gave fantastic sailing as the angle then was just enough to catch the waves almost continuously – averaging around 9.5 knots and went past several other boats like an express train. Pulled into the marina at Mali Losinj after a 3.5 hour sail. Probably the best sail of the season – and didn’t want to spoil it with the autopilot.
Savarna back in Mali Losinj - stopped raining.
Mali Losinj is a beautiful island and the town is just delightful. Monday morning it was a public holiday and we were woken by loud music on the nearby quayside and later there was local dancing in all the ceremonial costumes etc. There are a number of towns on the island and lots of anchorages and we are seriously thinking of spending a few days here again next year and using this as a stepping off point to cross to Italy.
Today (Monday 9th) we stopped off for lunch in a narrow passage between two islands and picked up a mooring buoy off the town of Ilovik, on the island of the same name and Otok SV Petar on the other side. Had a swim and cleaned up around the waterline and Pam started the washing machine up. – again a delightful spot and well worth more than the couple of hours we spent there.
We will be into Sukosan at around 2100 hrs tonight and then clean the boat up before departing back to NZ later in the week. Croatia has been a fantastic cruising ground and basically there are three main areas. Firstly the southern islands out from Dubrovnik and up to Kremik, secondly the central Adriatic area from Kremik north including the Kornat group and Dugi Otok and then the northern Adriatic area from Mali Losinj north including Istria. With hundreds of islands it would be very easy to spend two weeks in each area without then doing
it all justice.
Weather wise we have found the forecasting pretty poor. But reading the Pilot it does describe the influencing factors and points out the difficulties in accurate forecasting. June, July and August seem to be very settled months but outside that storms can brew quickly. We have used three weather sources this year – www.eurometeo.com/english , www.weatheronline.co.uk and www.bbc.co.uk . It is not unusual for the first two to have completely contrasting forecasts so in the end while I look at both sites I prefer the synoptic weather maps published by the BBC. The eurometeo site is useful as if one signs up (it is free) it is possible to drill down into the local coastal towns and from that deduce whether the wind is backing or veering. Apart from the weather sites the barometer remains the best guide on board and it proves invaluable.
Main alternator has just packed up so having to revert to the genset to keep the house batteries up to run the instruments. At least it is still under warranty!
Cheers for now
Keith