9: 1st September: Hospitality, Croatian style + dolphins at last!

Vego is crazy! He was working as a waiter in a fish & chip bar when we met him. He told us to be at Labud Yacht Club in Split at 8am on Saturday with our overnight bag and we were very glad we did!

It WAS the best place we had eaten in Croatia up to that point and he was helping his wife out as his youngest daughter had broken her arm falling off a Segway! (If you do not know what a Segway is – look it up on the internet. They claim it is impossible to fall off). It all started with the “Sailing in Croatia” tourist book we were given when we first arrived. This contained a list of highly recommended places to eat – the “purple Gourmet trail”. So far we hadn’t used the guide but after our last disastrous restaurant experience (slimy octopus salad and inedible mussels) we decided it was time to use some advice. So when we arrived in pretty Primosten we looked for recommended tavern “Garbin”. It did not look that promising .. kiosk style with a brutally honest menu – fried fish, fried squid, brouchetta, chips, red wine, white wine. But after a little discussion that went along the lines “well actually that IS all we have ever eaten in a Croatian restaurant and this one does have a purple John Dory!” we decided to go for it.

The food was excellent and we had two helpings of everything on the menu plus LOTS of wine because our hosts lost count of who had filled our glasses and how many times. At the end of the evening Vego came and sat with us and we got the impression he had drunk as much as us. We gave him what we felt was more than enough money and he must have thought the same as this was when he extended the invitation “and bring LOTS of money” were his closing remarks.
We sailed Deep Blue into Labud YC on Friday evening and immediately a whole gang of Vego’s mates took us under their wing and entertained (actually kidnapped) us all evening. We were going to be sailing in one of the big events of the sailing year. A race from Split to StariGrad, on the island of Hvar and back over two days (40 miles) on Vego’s newly acquired yacht, a 10 year old 12m Croatian designed cruiser, racer.

Next morning at 8am we met the other members of the crew – Vego, Vego’s lovely, lovely 27 year old daughter Lana (NGO lobbyist), handsome co-owner of the yacht Igor (Professor of Law), Igor’s mate Ivan (solicitor), and imposter (like us) Mislav (boat designer). There was a whole new suite of sails – virgin sails; a newly acquired yacht and a new crew! When we arrived on board Andy was given the job of making up Spinnaker sheets and I helped Lana prepare the drink bottles for the day – 50:50 wine and water!!!

Vego is a retired airline pilot and like all pilots we have ever met, bar one, a major risk taker and the life and soul of the party. It was great fun on the boat but perhaps a little too much alcohol was involved (Scotch whiskey was brought out by 9.30am to welcome us aboard) and the spinnaker run did not go well (this was the subject of great discussion late that night) and the Genoa got torn due to the inexperience of the crew (the “dogs bollocks” were left out!). But everyone spoke English all the time and made us feel very much part of the team – we had a brilliant time. That evening Ivan and I repaired the sail with a bit of help from a good bottle of wine.

Stari Grad (Old Town) is a very pretty little place with pre-roman history and we had two good meals (with 2 hours between – perhaps the alcohol helped here too) and we eventually got back to the boat after 1am rather the worst for wear. The start the next day was, thankfully, at 11.
Our return trip was much more co-ordinated and successful. This race was not handicapped and the competing yachts varied from very fast asymmetrical skiffs to small cruisers. We finished 16th out of the 35 competitors on a downwind spinnaker run, which seemed like our rightful place. The previous day we had come about 30th!! On the final leg of the race we saw big smoke at the top of a wooded hill and as we rounded the island of Ciovo we could see that the village of Slatine was in danger of being engulfed – the flames were above the trees. As we watched first one, then another helicopter started to empty buckets of sea water over the fire. It looked pretty ineffectual. Then a plane arrived and another ... eventually there were two helicopters, three float planes and three very large carrier planes all fighting the fire. The float planes scooped up the water between the racing yachts so we had a grand stand view. Also the wind increased by several knots and the windsurfers were out taking advantage. However, it was a very visual reminder of how dry it is here. After two hours of fire fighting they were successful at putting out the fire but we are still finding ash on Deep Blue.

When we returned to Deep Blue we found we had had an uninvited visitor who had taken my two fishing rods (very upsetting as these were given to me by Fourth Element) and Andy’s binoculars – the only things they could find worth taking -but to make us feel better as we left Split with J-Class Shamrock this morning (Monday), we were accompanied for nearly one hour by a pod of about 12 dolphins fishing. Very exciting – what a sight. We are now on the island of Brac at Bol – which has a moving beach and is featured on the front of many Croatian brochures surrounded by windsurfers. However, to Andy’s disappointment there is no sign of any wind!