Day one - Rogoznica to Vis

We didn't rush too much this morning as there was still a certain amount of familiarisation with the boat to do. All charter boats are dodgy in some way - and the weak link in this one is the GPS which is a superannuated black and white portable model that screws on to a bracket on the console. It is powered through an ordinary car cigarette lighter type socket which never make a very reliable connection. So it keeps turning itself off and you then have to fiddle with the plug to try to restore the connection and then reboot it. This is a hopeless arrangement! Luckily I have a wrist mounted mini GPS so am relying on that and the charts. 

Our plan for week one is to make for Dubrovnik - and so today we are heading for Vis which is about 30nm away. Sod's law is in action because the course required is 147 degrees and the wind is coming from....147! We tried a bit of tacking to see if this boat points up better than the Bavaria we had last time - and it does - but the wind dropped to 5 knots and we weren't getting anywhere so the engine is running and the autopilot is on and we are making headway. Hopefully the wind will pick up later and with even more luck it might shift direction a bit! 

On our last trip to Vis in 2005 we had terrible weather and our anchor slipped in the middle of the night. We were rudely awakened at 2am by a nasty crunching sound as we collided with another boat. Our electric anchor winch had broken so we had to haul anchor on a 47ft yacht manually - not so good! I do not think we will have that experience this time as the weather is beautiful. 

We had our first swim off the boat this morning - the water is perfect temperature. We bought a massive water melon yesterday (christened Woger for some reason) and that is keeping us going. We didn't stock up much on food yesterday as the marina shop was seriously expensive. Croatia is definitely cashing in on yachting visitors - it is no cheaper than, say, the south of France.

Later: - we had the good fortune we hoped for as the wind backed off to the East and picked up to 10-12 knots so we were able to sail the last 90 minutes or so into Vis. When we arrived we got the usual abuse from the mooring guys on the quay. We approached stern on to the quay at a perfect angle and competely under control - but still they waved their arms and gesticulated as if we'd just sunk half the Croatian fleet. I had to educate the crew that this is par for the course and needs to be ignored. The only way you will actually hit anything is if you allow them to get you flustered. Perhaps it is because you are on the boat and they are on the quayside wearing unfortunate uniforms. Who knows? 

We had a nice dinner overlooking the harbour and went to the supermarket. This was a bit disappointing. We are still short of a few essentials. Perhaps we will have better luck tomorrow.

Ancient GPS

Crew hard at work