Zut Marina – Monday 4 June 2018

We were uncertain what to do today.  Brbinj is a strange place.  The shop referred to in all the books remains closed.  There is even an advertised souvenir shop which is also closed.  We did get up a bit earlier than expected, but then I did collapse into bed early last night.  I think it was the terrible wine I drank with dinner.

So we decided to walk around to the other bay and the other Brbinj.  There was not much to see.  There are a lot of houses and they all had vegetable gardens.  The ferry runs to the other town, but other than that and two advertised restaurants there was nothing there.  There are lots of cars so there must be a petrol station somewhere and the inhabitants must go somewhere to buy food, but we saw nothing like that.

So back to the boat hot from our walk and we had to decide what to do.  We are still concerned about the weather report for tomorrow. Ever since we got back to the boat the long term forecast was bad for Tuesday.  We don’t think we want to stay in Brbinj in bad weather so we head off to Zut.

The journey isn’t far. Again what little wind there is, is on the nose.  Also our wind instrument has gone funny.  It seems to be out by at least 60-90 degrees and we can’t work out why.  The rest of the instrumentation, GPS, Autopilot and Plotter seem fine.  One good thing though, the windex is at last working.  We asked the Italians to fix it before they put the mast back and it seems that they made it get stuck, but it has now freed itself.

Now even Richard is worried about the fuel situation.  We have done virtually nothing but motoring and we didn’t start with a full tank.  So Richard has plotted us a stop at Zaglav on the other end of the Island we have been on where there is a fuel pontoon.  We follow the autopilot to where we are supposed to be going and can hardly believe it is right.  We seem to be going to the middle of nowhere.  But at the last minute low and behold we turn a corner to find a charming little port with a large fuel station.  The pilot book suggested that there is always a long queue for fuel, but there is only one other boat there and it is leaving!  So we fill the tank and it takes 113 liters, which means that we really needed fuel.  Also to our delight they have gas bottles and we are able to replace the empty one.  So we are set up for motoring and cooking for a few weeks!

The marina at Zut is not far and we get here at about 2:45pm.  We are very surprised to see it is nearly empty.  There are only two other boats on the piers.  There are several boats on mooring buoys. But we go ahead to the pontoon and there is an official to meet us and help with lines.  The place is strange as expected as it is in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a national park.  The books did say that there was restricted access to water and electricity.  What we didn’t understand however is that this restriction affects not only the boats but the marina itself.  So the office only opens when the electricity is on and the same for the shop.  Also as the shopkeeper pointed out he keeps very little fresh food and no fresh meat because he has interrupted electricity and no continuous refrigeration!  So not much hope of reprovisioning here, but of course they do have beer!

We also find that we can swim just on the other side of the pier where there are boarding ladders.  So we are able to cool off as it is now hot and sunny and there is nothing more to do until the electricity comes on at 6pm.

We have dinner on the boat and look at the weather forecast again.  It is worse.  They are now predicting high winds of 30 knots tomorrow morning.  This place isn’t that well sheltered.  We shall just have to see how we get on.  It is likely we will stay for a second day in any event.  The weather is supposed to improve for Wednesday and Thursday.

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