Having a new boat does not seem to reduce the amount of work to prepare for our departure from Marina Dalmacija. Once launched we spent 4 days cleaning Deja Vu after the winter ashore. In spite of having been well covered in the boat park, she was still covered in red Saharan dust that had engrained itself everywhere. However after two sessions with the hose and the brush she gleamed once again. Mo administered a coat of Boracol to the teak decks, an anti-fungal treatment, determined to preserve the newness as long as possible.
We always enjoy seeing Sukosan and the adjacent village of Bibinje so we took time out to walk and cycle around the local area.
We hired a mini Smart car to get us into Zadar for the essential formalities to make our sailing in Croatia legal and raid the local supermarkets. We always enjoy the social time on Pier 16 in the marina and this time we met up with Irish friends Fiona and Paul Carroll on Little Megan who were en route to Dubrovnik, Jane and Jeremy from Hebe June IV, and Rob, who was looking after friend John Gannon’s boat Forgiveness, whilst John was working in the States!
We finally set off after breakfast on Monday 18th May in glorious sunshine with the promise of at least 3 good sailing days. Our destination was south and we took in Kakan and Rozognica before mooring up in Trogir to weather the next 3 days of rain and gales.
The main excitement during our stiff beat from Rozognica was an unexpected intake of sea water in the aft heads. Well heeled on a port tack we deduced water was spouting up the basin waste and filling the heads compartment. We bailed out quickly and changed tack! Next time we will close the sink valves. Apart from that we were pleased that the new Deja Vu sailed well on each tack, sailing much closer to the wind than the old boat. We are still trying to get the hang of the new powerful ‘smaller’ jib though. This sail needs a gorilla to winch it in.
Deja Vu 
You must be logged in to post a comment.