Croatia sailing charter

Croatia sailing charter

Hello. This is my video of sailing with a 
stranger in a foreign country. What could go wrong? We start with a flight to 
London. Food. Sunsets from the plane. Breakfast in London. Ice cream vending machines. Who knew? These are the Austrian Alps. Gorgeous. These are some of the Croatian islands. It really was that blue. This is the Adriatic Sea. Little harbor town we flew over. Look how 
blue that water was. This is Mali Dosheen, my favorite island. This is the hotel in Pula. This is the Park Plaza Hista. My huge balcony. They should warn you that the pool is not heated. found an indoor pool. It was warm and salty. This is the hotel’s second pool. I imagine during 
season this is very busy. It had an adult pool, a kid pool, and everything 
was overlooking the ocean. Wow. I ended up eating at that restaurant for dinner. There was a nice walkway that went 
along the coast around the hotel. This is sunset. My first night there. This is called Hawaii Beach. Just 
beautiful. This was dinner. Grilled vegetables were amazing. This is my 
favorite coffee pot. It was electric. Pickle ball and tennis very 
popular in Pula, Croatia. This was a little marina right next to my hotel. I think these were grape vines. So many boats. This is the Pula Arena. This is 
where gladiators fought. It was built around year 1. They had a really nice audio tour. 
You’d scan a QR code and it would tell you about the spot that you were standing. 
There was about 26 QR codes to scan. I think I spent about an hour and a half here. 
I’ve never been in something so old. Just amazing. Cute little lion. This is underneath the arena. They 
use this area to make olive oil. Some cars were outside. People like them, too. This is the twin gate. This is an old historic wall. As 
you can see in this next photo, these are feet upside down. This is the 
arch of Sergei. I thought this guy was cool. fountain for birds. Here’s the arch of Sige. A little bit closer 
up. This is underneath the arch. Neat design. Some candy stores. Look how big this was. It’s just a door. Beautiful. 
This is a mosaic behind somebody’s house. I’m guessing it means beware a dog. Some old ruins again behind somebody’s house. 
Oldfashioned toilet I thought was interesting. This is the Pula Citadel. It’s an old fort 
on top of a hill in the center of Pula. Cat donation area. This is a nice 360 view from the top of the citadel. It was a beautiful old historic town. 
They had done nicely to preserve a lot of it. They had informative signs telling 
you where the historic points were. And all the points were also in Google Maps in 
purple. Was very helpful. There’s the port. This is This is an underground tunnel 
used for the war. The castle fortress. This is temple of Augustus 
also built in year one or two. The temple they had restored a little bit, 
but it was still beautiful to re to see There was these intricate tiny figurines. This is the port. Grilled calamarie. Generous helping palm trees. An old hotel. This is Sunset at the marina 
where our boat is located. Okay, this is the boat. This is my luggage. I’m hoping this is yogurt. You can see hummus was 
interesting. Cottage cheese. And then milk. Starboard aft. Same on this side. I don’t know what that is. I’m on a website called Find a Crew. 
The captain of this boat chartered this boat. He was by himself except for his 
12-year-old daughter. They’re from Switzerland. the Romanian. They spoke Romanian to 
each other. The captain spoke English very well and the daughter was still 
learning, but she still spoke very well. We did one video chat for about 15 
minutes and that was it. I changed my ticket. I was supposed to meet a captain 
in Greece. changed it to Croatia. Really, I was just happy to be going 
somewhere in Europe and sailing. He had chartered boats before. I think 
this was about his fourth or fifth charter. But him being landlocked, I think a little bit 
more practice for both of us would have been good. Stop talking again. the out of the way. I don’t 
know how this is going to work with the on here. We were stuck on the dock for day 
one. There’s a storm that came   through overnight and into the morning 
is blowing 30 to 35 knots. is a sunset. Neat lights. So, with being stuck 
on the dock, I went to the aquarium. Hunter’s friend. It was on 130 year old fort. That was neat. Hunter loves these. They even put fish outside. Just taking a walk. Neat little beach. This is a canyon. There’s 
all sorts of warning signs about going down there. Looks pretty dangerous. Church on a hillside. So, we start day one. Winds finally calmed 
down. We had about 5 to eight knots. Not looking too bad. These are all the boats leaving 
first thing in the morning. Everybody’s excited. This is our first time putting up the 
sails together, not knowing the boat ourselves. That’s the captain. It was a 
little difficult. Our main sail got stuck cuz our reefing lines weren’t open because of 
the low wind. That’s my attempt at sail twist. First night we pulled into a little bay. We 
did 22 to 23 knots or 22 to 23 nautical miles. that day and every day really. No wind at least means calm anchorages. I slept great pretty much every night. 
Huge difference compared to St. John. We did get in the water. It was 70°. Pretty 
cold. Couldn’t see anything. It was cloudy. Still really pretty. This is 
sunrise. The next morning, day number two, we went from our little bay 
over to Assaur. Again, 20 plus nautical miles. And again, no wind. glass. At this point, we had another problem. Our 
jib howiard got stuck and tangled in our jib. That was my grocery shopping. This is the island 
of Azour. The bridge only opened between 9 or it opened at 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p. p.m. So, we 
checked out a little cafe and enjoyed the scenery. When Captain went to get off the dock, 
he scraped the back edge of the boat on the dock. We did make it through the little channel. Okay. This is us walking around 
the town looking at sheep. Finally found the cats. Tons of cats. We now own 10 Croatian cats. This guy didn’t want to be touched. This one was sleeping in front of a restaurant. For you southerners, that’s a bogan via. This was the town of Azour after we made 
it through the channel and the bridge. These are the church bells that were 
ringing at 700 p.m. It was so lovely. It was calm in this little bay. The next 
day it was gusting up to 25 knots. When the wind report said it was going to be 
12 to 15, we were not prepared for that. We tried putting up the main. 
We put it right back down. We ended up running just with the gym and at 
a certain point we put on our life jackets. I started asking where the E-B and the handheld 
VHF were. We had neither. That’s the moon. So day three coming out of Azor 
circling around to Molly Loin. That wasn’t even the most of 
it. We got up to 25 knots. Just the jib. The waves getting started getting so big 
on our port stern. I put the camera away and life jacket on. We rounded the corner. 
Finally found a place to set anchor and relax. Eat some lunch. went for a swim because 
we lost the boat hook trying to pick up a moing. Luckily, it floated. The water is so clear here. This is the entrance to Mali Loin. Beautiful little harbor town. I could have stayed here for a while. We had a Med for the first time. These 
are the pros that came in next to us. It’s a tight squeeze. So we were in a protected harbor. There 
was a town and had a beautiful sidewalk that formed a U with the town with all sorts of 
restaurants that somebody’s beautiful landscaping. All the houses kind of had like a little 
yard that was bricked off, fenced off. This is one of the back alleyways. 
On the app, all trails, it did show   these alleyways, so I didn’t feel like 
I was getting lost, which was helpful. I like this house. Here’s the sidewalk. Another cat. She was super friendly. I thought 
eventually she would leave. She stuck around for almost 10 minutes. She was doing the passive 
aggressive. I’m walking and then she’d walk in front of me and go side to side to try and slow 
me down. Very sweet. She didn’t try and hit me. You never know with cats you’re not familiar with. Finally down the road there was another 
gray cat that looked similar to her that was staring at her. So, she stopped 
following me and started staring at   that cat. I’m pretty sure she would 
have just gotten on the boat with me. Be good. None of the cats that I saw look   super skinny or unhealthy or 
anything. That was reassuring. The dog This is some jiggly cake. It was pretty 
good. This is sunrise the next morning. Beautiful. On the opposite side of the harbor 
town was the actual coastline for the island. It would come in, make these bays, and then they 
had a beautiful boardwalk that went for miles. When the sidewalk would come into the bay, there 
was usually some seating, a restaurant, a bar, a beautiful swimming area, and then it would go back 
out the other side of the bay along the coast. cute church. Right on the water. Beautiful homes, hotels, 
just that Mediterranean feel. I would love to go back. So, they have a mild climate due to the 
Adriotic Sea. This is a bar that was in one of the bays. Very cute. That’s that 
church from the other side of the bay. island in the distance. Tons of hiking trails. Architecture was neat. That 
was tiles on that house. I ended up going swimming. It was cold. bike tour. Nobody was below 50 years old. This is day number four. We went back 
to mainland Croatia. Found out that our dinghy was leaking gas. Luckily, we had the 
paddles. We made it home just in time for sunset. This is sunrise. That’s me. Day number five rounding the southern edge 
of mainland Croatia, Istria. This is a fishing boat that we saw. All 
the charter boats had to be back Friday at five o’clock. So there was an unofficial race 
between all the sailboats. We were motor sailing, mainly motoring directly into the 
wind, so our sails weren’t much use. This is me putting up the sails. Sailing off the wind would 
have helped us a little bit. I changed the camera angle 
to the back of the boat.   That’s me trying to mess with 
the sales. Get half a knot more. Overall, it was a really good time. Captain   and his daughter were super sweet, 
very friendly, extremely patient. Either we had no wind or too much. That’s 
the coastline. Very expensive boat. Some jellyfish back at a marina. They were 
everywhere. Last view of the charter boats. some treats before the plane to go home. There was no jetways. The ice cream on the right was delicious. 
Fancy water at the hotel. At the Frankfurt Airport Hilton Garden in it was 
gorgeous. Breakfast was amazing. It’s a view from my room. Food on the plane to go back home. 
They even give you some ice cream and a snack before landing. It’s a fig cake that I picked up from Croatia. ready to go somewhere else.

Being a solo sailor is hard. Luckily there is the internet to find crew and boats. This is my adventure with a complete stranger in a foreign country sailing on a boat neither of us are familiar with.

We traveled 123nm using the app Seapeople to track our journey.