Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Scaling the Wall in Croatia

2013 07 09
 under sail somewhere north of Split and South of Sibenik


Somewhere on the Coast North of Split
Looking West (Into the Adriatic)
Finally we are finding tranquility in the HR (Hrvaskat Republic or Croatia as we know it).  It has been slow to arrive.  A difficult entry with Port Police at Cavtat, serial encounters with locals where the only point was theft by them from us and intense crowds of tourists built a wall of negativity between the HR and us.

After two weeks we have scaled the wall.  We avoid heavily touristic areas preferring quiet anchorages; we do not do business with Croatians unless necessary and then with our eyes open and our mouths at the ready to object and our feet ready to walk away. 

The scenery here still works magic.

Evenings have generated good times with boaters from all over Europe - Slovenia, Germany, Italy, UK.  But contact with Croatians is limited.   We figure this is a bit of a reaction to the tourism economy.  Bahamians too hold their economically important guests in contempt.  The tendency is to view foreigner visitors as just a source of money to be squeezed and discarded.

The sailing is nice, very North Channel Great Lakes except there is 300miles of it.  And the water is salt.  And everybody speaks Croatian.  And all the flags are foreign.

You know, it is nothing like the Great Lakes but the views remind us of home.

Our plan was to use Croatia as an Anchorage as we made our way north to Venice.  So far this has worked in spades and our accommodations each night have been grand.  We hope to see more on our return from Venice.












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