Maricol, Unije – Thursday 31 May 2018

We were supposed to leave early today but we got rather lazy and the morning slipped away.  We did find the butchers open and were able to buy some rump steak.  Now I have three meals worth of meat plus eggs and pasta on board so we should be alright with Richard’s plans for more wild mooring over the next four or five days.

However, we did not get to fill up with fuel.  As we were getting ready to leave a huge super sailing yacht went on to the fuel pontoon and was obviously going to be there for at least 30 minutes if not more.  It was already 10:15, so we decided to go.  I hope we won’t regret the decision.  We have not yet been able to sail because there has been no wind, so we are dependant on the motor.

The weather is bright sunny and hot again.  Richard guessed that the temperature in the cabin was 28C and was the same on deck in the morning.  There is no wind predicted, but Richard put up the mainsail as we left the harbour.  He put up the Genoa a few times but we never were able to switch off the engine.  As we had started late and had a 30 mile trip we had to keep up the knots.

By lunch time it had become very hot and there was no sign of a breath of wind either to sail with or to cool down.  We both changed into bathing suits, which helped a bit.

Richard had identified this island as looking nice for an overnight stay.  It is basically uninhabited except for one small village.   There is an inlet which is filled with mooring buoys for boats to stay over night.  We made it in here at about 4:30 pm. Getting onto a buoy was quite a challenge.  The buoys are those small orange plastic things.  The tops are too small to attach a line with the yellow peril.  In any event I found that they were so small I couldn’t reach down to them.  Finally with the help of the yellow peril I was able to lasso the buoy to secure us for a start.  Then as we had done before Richard goes out to the buoy in the dinghy and attaches it properly to the boat with me on deck to receive the lines and tie them on.  It was so hot that instead of using the dinghy Richard just swam to the buoy and we tied on properly. We felt very proud of ourselves for managing so well.  

Deserted this island may be, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a man to take money for our overnight stay.  He was quite funny. He looked at the boat and asked how long it was.  When we said it was 10.98 meters he said, “no, its only 9.9 meters because that saves you 100Kn on the mooring fees.  So who were we to argue.  Later we saw how others tied to the buoys.  They had the mooring man take their line and feed it through the buoy!

So we had our swim (I joined Richard in the water after he attached the buoy).  Richard then had a go at cleaning the hull which was filthy on the port side.  While alongside in Umag I cleaned the starboard side.  Now we have just finished dinner in the cockpit.  It is very quiet here.  Maybe we will get another swim in, in the morning. We haven’t far to go to our next stop.  This place reminds us of Levitha in Greece.  We even saw some goats on the shore.