Last trip of the season

We had a couple of days in Sukosan, weathered another storm there, but most importantly met up with American friend John and his partner Isabella and enjoyed their good company. This included toasting John’s recovery from Hep C, going out for supper to a Thai restaurant in Zadar and catching a light entertaining film at the cinema as well as Mo taking advantage of Isabella’s new found skills as a professional masseuse with a massage delivered on the bow of their boat Forgiveness.

Friday August 29^th was warm and sunny with light northerly winds so we cast off for our last trip before returning around 13^th September to have Deja Vu lifted out before our flight home on 17^th.

Three hours into an otherwise pleasant and gentle broad reach, the northerly winds decided to freshen just as we hoisted the cruising chute about 10 miles north of Zirje. Unfortunately the knot holding the shackle on the halyard failed and seconds later our brightly coloured chute was in the water dangerously close to going under the boat. We retrieved the sail in the nick of time with a huge amount of pulling and tugging as the boat was charging off at 5 knots under just the mainsail. We realised that heading up too soon would increase the chances of losing the sail altogether and making a bad situation worse. All was well in the end except that we had a huge, wet, salty sail out of its sock to contend with on the deck.  Zirje made for a pleasant overnight stop to sort ourselves out!

We called in at Vinisce and then headed for Milna on the south coast of Brac, where we are now as an even worse storm is raging this Monday September 1^st. We took a bus trip to Supetar on the north coast of Brac,

We both had wanted to visit Vis and discover some of the WWII history of the island. Vis was the only part of Yugoslavia not occupied by enemy forces and so presented an opportunity for the Allied forces to use and transfer much needed supplies to the partisans, led by Tito, who were fighting a guerrilla war on the mainland. This desire was fuelled by us both reading Fitzroy Macleans’ excellent book recounting his experiences during WWII, including assisting Tito and the Partisans in their fight against the Germans

However our efforts to go further south are being thwarted by some atrocious weather that is covering the whole Mediterranean. The pressure plummeted from 1015mb to 1004mb overnight.

We eventually reached Vis on Wednesday 3^rd September and booked ourselves onto a 3 hour ‘military tour’ of the island. With a German couple as our travel companions (slightly embarrassing; don’t mention the war!) in a useful off-road vehicle, our guide, Robert, was suitably factual in showing us an interesting WWII operations site, the site of the Allied Forces WWII airstrip, Tito’s WWII hideout and then some of Tito’s Cold War defences of the 1960’s including a massive cave to hide missile ships in which was 120m long and 18m high.

Mo had to rein in her claustrophobic tendencies to explore the WWII tunnels but it was worth it as they were quite a revelation. The secret underground passages that led from a simple looking shepherds house gave way to living quarters, communication systems, (still in place and in remarkably good order), munitions rooms and stairways up to more than one Bofors gun emplacements. (Mo’s father had been a Bofors gun commander in Italy, at this same time during the war)

Neither of us really believed that Tito did live in his so called cave and according to Robert he actually spent most of his time in the nearby village.  We had a really interesting day and followed it up the next day by renting a scooter to see the remainder of the island.  Had an excellent lunch in a lovely bay to the South East of the island.

Time to head north again via Sesula Bay on Solta, Rogoznica, Kakan and Murter, and yet, another big storm with the usual sound and light show.

Next stop will be Sukosan where we clean up and lift out the new Deja Vu in readiness for her winter storage. We look forward to a new season next year.