Progress At Last

The old city of Zadar

Well its been an interesting experience. We always knew things would  take time with the Maritime NZ ship registration so it was an absolute relief to get confirmation at last that every thing had gone through. We could now get on with getting the Croatian license to sail the waters.....but not to be. We turned up at the Zadar Marine Port Office to finally get the license and were told this could not happen if you did not have a skippers license. I sort of knew this was going to be a pre-requisite so I had been studying for the test for the past 2 weeks. So the test exam was booked for Friday last week.  Friday came around, I was called in for my test and started off pretty shaky. In the end I flew through and I am very happy to say I have my Croatian skippers license.

Unbelievable sunsets here

On Sunday morning  it was time to venture out on our first sail on Split Enz. We planned an overnight stay in one of the bays ..Anne and Cam our Aussie friends met us in there yacht
out the front of the marina and we motor sailed for a good 3 hours...with a little bit of sailing thrown in. We had a slight mishap leaving the berth, they insist on reversing the boats in to the marina, so as you could imagine it can be a little tricky trying to manoeuvre something around 50ft in such a tight squeeze. The worrying factor was we got a little tangled  up with a mooring rope exiting!!!  So in the back of our minds, how on earth would we cope reversing back in on our return..Ange's nerves were pretty well blown, but a quick blast with the bow thruster sorted the mishap out nicely. So we had this worrying factor in the back of our minds...

AnneCam

.backing in to the marina was going to be much harder. As it turned out, there was no problems at all on our return. We reversed her in like we had done it before.

The weather was calm and very little breeze so we had a very still night staying in a secluded little bay on the Sth West coast of Pasman Island.We anchored in close to the shore  in ideal conditions. I ended up cleaning the bottom of the boat about a metre below the water line. By the end of the day I had a total of 3 swims and Ange clocked up a fairly extensive nanna nap.
Only one issue when we went to leave the next morning....our anchor winch decided it wasn't going to play the game and we ended up with Cams help hauling it up by hand and then with the aid of a halyard around the electric winch back in the cockpit lifting the anchor....man that was hard. But all sorted now, got it fixed back at the marina when we returned on Monday.

Its official

On Tuesday it was time to head up to Zagreb to meet Mike and Marina. Mike was on a 4 day break . We decided to drive as we had the use of our Norwegian friend's car. On the way up we stopped off at Zadar to pick up my Skippers license.
The drive up to Zagreb was superb,  fantastic sights, with a brilliant road that took us through mountains with 5 k tunnels...really worth the drive.
So at the moment we are staying with Marina's Grandma. We have been treated to some terrific Croatian hospitality. I think the waistline is growing!

At anchor, Pasman Island

Yesterday we spent the day out at Marina's mums parents at the hazel nut farm. Its not time to pick the crop yet but as they are both elderly, any help is appreciated. There's a total of 400 hazel nut trees and the property needed some mowing and weed eating. It was around 37degrees so a fair amount of fluid had to be replaced with the usual Croatian feast in between.....followed by a nap. Since arriving here the weather has been really hot in the 30's. Yesterday we bought a fan just so we are able to sleep.

Ange looking a little more relaxed

 Today the weather is slightly cooler, as we are inland you struggle to get any relief from the heat.  Mike heads back to the UK on Saturday to resume his racing, Its been great having M & M around and especially neat to be able to meet the rellys and get amongst the real Croatia.
So we drop Mike off at the airport on Saturday, then its a cruisy drive back to boat in Sukosan, with Marina as our guest to see a few sights on the yacht.
Thanks for reading.

The township of Pasman

Split Enz

Grandpa, Steve and Mike

Always time for a feed.

Ange M & M at the hazel nut farm

Looking through a glass wall waiting for M&M to come through customs at Zagreb.