7: 14-18th Aug Venice to Chioggia, and back to Croatia

14th August 2008
The extended Lagoon, in which Venice is just one of the many settlements, is an amazing place. Here, life is entirely based around the sea in the form of fishing or boat building. This is in evidence in Venice itself but moving South and West of Venice we saw many small ribbon towns precariously built on the mud and obviously thriving on the fruits of the sea. Here a boatbuilding town with a drydock that scooped up a large vessel and then lifted it out of the water for painting, there a town with a large fishing fleet.
We are now at the Southernmost exit from the Lagoon, Chioggia, anchored in a small shallow bay 1 mile from town. The sea landscape here is amazing. Sticks and poles everywhere - marking the canals, identifying peoples fishing area, warning you of undersea cables. Huts on stilts strut across the knee deep water, old fortifications on random islands of mud and many, many fishing boats and fishing equipment. All around us little boats drift by with men fishing.
Last night, seeing so many people with lines out I thought I would do the same. I had been trying to work out what they were catching and couldn’t see, but decided there must be something worth catching or there wouldn’t be so many fishermen. After I put out my line people started to give me funny looks – as if to say “what are YOU fishing for?” so the next time a person came close enough I called out to ask what he was catching. He explained “ink fish” using line baited with live shrimp. The shrimp attracted the ink fish which grabbed the shrimp and as the line was pulled up he caught the fish in his net. It only really worked if you were drifting with the current. So I was anchored and had no net ... hence the strange looks. He gave me some shrimps so I could have a go. We worked out, from his description of how to prepare the fish (eyes and mouth off, bone out, ink sac in or out depending on preference) that the fish was actually Cuttle fish.
After a fruitless attempt, this morning we decided to cheat. We took the tender into town to investigate the fish market. The selection of fish was amazing and we bought Adriatic shrimps and local bass. So much less painful than fishing. The ink fish were €30 per kilo – no wonder everyone caught their own!
We went to investigate one of the huts on stilts – Andy was sure he had heard a strange humming from one of them and was intrigued to know what it was. When we pulled up nearby, in typical Italian fashion, they stopped the machinery and showed us what they were doing – scooping the contents of the sea floor up and extracting the shell fish. We had seen men doing this with nets but this was a large moving machine doing the same thing rather more efficiently. We like this place – not dependant on the tourist, getting on with life. We had a brilliant time shopping in the market and bought lots of Italian goodies to take back to Croatia. We hope to leave tomorrow as we are promised wind in a direction that will blow us there in good time to miss the rain due this weekend in Italy (it is their Bank Holiday weekend).
17th August 2008
Back in beloved Croatia after an uneventful but long motor which ended at 1 am this morning. The forecasted wind turned to a storm and we decided that the warnings issued by Split Radio would be noted and moved to the marina in Chioggia. The rain was torrential and the lightening almost as impressive as the half hour firework display put on by the town at midnight just for us, the previous evening.
As we were storm bound we decided to go and lunch on inkfish. We were astounded to find that a plate of this local delicacy was €20 compared to €8 for a plate of mixed seafood pasta. We had to have a try though so we duly ordered, really not knowing what to expect. What came was about 20 little black landmines and a bowl of yellow semolina! We had to ask the waiter how to eat these (I thought very unappetising objects) and he dolloped a couple of spoonfuls of semolina on to the plate and plonked 3 black balls on top, indicating that lemon should now be squeezed. What can I say – it tasted like a real staple! But at least we have done the full thing from fishing to eating.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning, cutting hair and washing. All the usual stuff when we are somewhere with fresh water on tap while we waited for the storm to pass.
When we left yesterday morning we were expecting a following wind for our 75 mile crossing. But no, the wind blew on our nose most so we ended up motoring most of the way (13 hours!). We are now in the most glorious inlet SE of Pula called Uvala Kanalic. Wooded all around with clear water to swim in. Fab!
18th August 2008
We have just had the most amazing 3 hour sail down wind at 7 plus knots with our spinnaker set. If you like sailing you really cannot beat Croatia. Now we are at anchor off a small village on the island of Cres. As soon as we arrived we dived into the beautiful clear waters. As I dived in I wondered what I had dived into, though I had seen nothing, because I felt something slide down my legs ..... as I surfaced I realised it was my bikini bottoms!! Oh well, nothing like skinny dipping. I am now down to my final two bikinis as I lost the top of another last week!