July 4th, we met up with our Farnham friends, Yvonne and Paul in Herceg Novi, Montenegro and the next day we checked out of Montenegro, sailed 25 miles up the coast with the cruising chute and checked back into Croatia at Cavtat on Thursday 5th July. We had been away almost exactly a month. We spent our first night back at anchor in Tiha Bay, Cavtat and enjoyed a Cuthbert style BBQ.
Our time with Yvonne and Paul went quickly, it was only 5 days, but we managed some good sailing, visited Okuklje on Mljet, Sipanska Luka for another great gourmet fish dinner at Marco’s, an explore around Sipan and the adjacent mainland.
Our plan to drop our visitors off at Slano to get a taxi to the airport was foiled when our attempts to moor there were thwarted by unexpected 35 knot onshore gusts in the bay and a sudden failure of the bow thruster! Plan B came into play and we had a lively sail downwind to Zaton, close to the famous Dubrovnik Bridge, where we managed to moor up for their last night on board.
Yvonne and Paul left us on Monday July 9th and we turned north once again stopping off at Polace on Mljet, then the delightful Racisce Bay, just south of Korcula Town in the island of Korcula.
Nigel’s investigation into the bow thruster failure took us into Korcula Town in the dinghy which proved to be a lively and exciting trip dodging waves, ferries and everything else! We went to see the engineer who had fixed our outboard last time we visited, who assured Nigel the part he had taken to show him was not broken, and we did not need a new pin! Back to the diagnostic drawing board and as you know Nigel is not one to be defeated. He sweated buckets in the heat of the evening, reassembled the unit, realigning various parts, and success, it worked!
Very relieved this is fixed, although we do need more oil in the gearbox.
It is now Wednesday 11th July and today we had perhaps the best sail of the trip, as we journeyed from Korcula to Lastovo. We covered just over 20 miles with 15 knots of wind, which started as a broad reach, bent round to a beam reach and finished up a close reach before it died 2 miles before our destination. It was perfect sailing, averaging 5.5 knots.
We thought we had seen most of Croatia’s surprises, but here at Skrivena Luka on Lastovo, we seem to have found one of the best places it has to offer. It is beautiful, unspoilt, quiet, roomy – it is quite perfect and we feel immensely lucky to be here right now. Look out for the next posting, all about Lastovo.
Deja Vu 
can’t see the anchor ball on your third picture!
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