Hvar To The Kornati's
Posted at 9:38 AM, Sep. 30, 2007
Will start by picking up where I left off last Sunday (23 September) in Hvar town, After two previous visits and with a calm harbour, absent the usual roll, we adjourned to the quayside and caught up with Sue Warren, who had son Jake out from London for a few days and her mother over from NZ for a couple of weeks. Spent a pretty casual day partaking of both caffeine and alcohol as well as some food on a lovely sunny day and catching up with Sue’s activities since we had last seen her in June. It was also the day of the AB”s v Scotland and we heard that a local bar was going to place a TV outside for that game and also the Australia game. In the event we had got the times wrong and late afternoon we decided to head over to the nearby island of Palmezana and anchor in the same bay we had a couple of months before. Sue had booked us a table at the restaurant up off the beach but we ended up at Toto’s again for a pizza. Still no sign of Edward the blonde waiter!!
Monday 24th we picked up a nice breeze, under genaker for a while, for a sail across to Otok Solta and again anchored in the bay at the NE end of the island at the town of Maslinica. Again a repeat visit and again a pleasant overnight stay followed by coffee with local bread and cheese ashore the following morning. Tuesday headed north, stopping off in a small bay for lunch and then with a worsening forecast had a good sail on to Rogoznica. Previously we have anchored off around the back of the island but with a fair amount of easterly we were able to go stern to at the quayside in the village of Rogoznica itself. Ended up being here Tuesday and Wednesday nights with plenty of wind and some rain also. – so we were in a good spot and close to all the action in the town, if that is how one can describe it!. Annette and Marco departed the Wednesday evening back to London.
The following morning (Thursday 27th) we headed off for the Kornati island group and had a 40 mile sail up to Otok Lavsa and picked up one of the moorings in the bay - a small island on the eastern side of the two large islands in the Kornat group.
Typical settlement on Otok Kornat
There are four main islands in the Kornati group which run on a NE to SW axis and at the closest point only 11 miles offshore. The southern most and largest island (Otok Kornat) is around 18 miles long and less than a mile wide and fringed with dozens of island on the eastern side. Otok Lavsa is a few miles up Otok Kornat on the eastern with a very sheltered bay, laid mooring buoys, one restaurant and what looked like some sort of dive centre. The eastern (inshore) side of Otok Kornat looked from the chart to be bereft of much in the way of decent anchorages while the eastern side has literally dozens of islands and narrow passages through and around which to sail – and all in relatively flat water.
The Kornati islands are devoid of vegetation pretty much and the Pilot descries the islands as looking like a moonscape – and the photo below gives some evidence of this (of course everyone knows what a moonscape looks like!)
Motoring through one on the passages between islands.
While sailing up the almost fiordlike passage to our planned anchorage at Otok Lavsa. Picked up a buoy and went ashore to the sole restaurant for a beer and back to the boat for dinner. The buoy’s were marked as being for the use of the restaurant so we figured a beer would be sufficient. Four other yachts in the bay only – seems to be a lot quieter up here than further south.
While motoring up through this area we were confronted with a “water” plane landing and taking off until finally it did lad about 100 meters off our stern as can be seen from the photos.
Water plane landing not far off the stern
The Kornati islands were burn’t off initially by shepherds a few hundred years ago so they could graze sheep and goats and then eventually the rest destroyed in a 40 day fire in 1850. So it seems a bit late for the “water” plane.
Dropping the load - not on us thank goodness
Friday the 28th no wind to speak of and motored northwards through various narrow passages between dozens of islands and finally emerged at the pass between Otok Kornat and Dugi Otok - this island also running on a NE to SW axis and about 25 miles long. We picked up a mooring buoy in the narrow pass between the islands for a lunch stop and a swim. The pass is only about 20 meters wide at its narrowest with a restaurant on the Otok Kornat side. A handful of yachts around but again pretty quiet. After going through the pass we motored up the eastern side of Dugi Otok to the very small and unspoilt town of Brbinj – very deep and sheltered bay with laid buoys and lines ashore to pick up also. A storm passed through on way up to Brbinj - we missed the rain but got 25 knts on the nose. Flat water so motored through it.
An abandoned Kornat castle
We are heading north to the area known as Istria so will make another posting soon.
Cheers
Keith