Before leaving Stari Grad on the island of Hvar we took the bus across the island to the ancient town of Hvar to show Ken and Cathy one of the most visited places in Croatia. The bus took us via the ferry terminal where we collected more passengers from the boat that arrived from Split – you can just see it in the distance in the photo below.
Hvar was duly enjoyed and we returned to Stari Grad for a delicious Konoba supper in restaurant Jurin Podrum in the back streets of the town. Highly recommended. Our return sail to Trogir was brisk with over 20 knots of headwind (is there any other sort?) but it was exhilarating for all and we averaged over 6 knots, peaking at 7.5 knots. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Ken and Cathy as they had to pack for their long and complicated flight routings back to hot, very hot Houston. We had enjoyed their stay with us.
We had a couple of days to turn around for our next visitors, this time Pam and Alan Penson from Lymington in the UK. We sorted out the boat and decided to chill out in Vinisce for a night where we were treated to a thunderstorm, lots of rain followed by the beautiful rainbow, which I hope you can pick out in the photo below!
Deciding to pick Pam and Alan up in Split we did the 15 mile sail to the harbour and tied up on the harbour wall, perfect, we thought, for collecting our next crew. Alas the harbour master wanted far too much money for the mooring fee and the anchorage was too full of catamaran to be suitable, so we headed off to the marinas in the adjacent bay. Eventually we tied up in Marina Kastel, not our favourite, but it served a useful purpose and Pam and Alan were on board early the next morning.
Our journey plan for the next 10 days is to travel north from Split to Sukosan, our home port and show Pam and Alan some sailing areas in Croatia further north than they have previously explored. We hope to get out to the Kornati islands weather permitting. The weather systems are still unsettled, but it looks like they might improve during the week. Needless to say the forecast is for northerlies and westerlies!
On Sunday June 1st, wishing to escape the Marina, we did not allow Pam and Alan to unpack and, instead, whisked them off for, yes, a brisk 15 mile beat west. They are both experienced sailors so they were quite game for the blast that followed. The afternoon winds continue to be quite ferocious and this time storms were all around as well. We just managed to anchor up for an overnight stop in the shelter of Vinisce when a major storm landed right overhead, bad enough for Nigel to deploy the makeshift lightning conductor and stow the radios and phones in the oven!
Monday June 2nd dawned brighter and warmer and we continued our journey round to the pretty coastal resort of Primosten.
We sailed from Primosten to Sibenik and then motored up the river to the famous waterfalls at Skradin.
We are there now as I write. We last visited with Tom and Faye in 2008, so as we do chores on board, Pam and Alan have gone off to explore the Krka National Park.
Deja Vu 
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