We landed at Dubrovnik airport and after 15 minutes with the friendliest people I’ve ever come across at a rental car company we headed up the stunning coast to the centre of town.
We found our apartment, had dinner and then Audrey, Hayley and I spent a little time (and more than a little Kuna) at a little arcade by the beach.
The next morning we headed into the Old Town, which I was excited to see as it was used as as a major location in Game Of Thrones. We’d heard it gets busy in the summer, especially on days when cruise ships are in town. That day, as it turned out there were four ships in port, so the city was packed. It was also 35 degrees which made climbing the many stairs pretty challenging.
After exploring the town for a couple of hours, Mandi and the kids were tired of the heat and I was tired of the crowds. I decided to come back at sunrise the next day, but there was one thing I wanted to see that didn’t open early - Fort Lovrijenac, so I headed off (up yet more stairs) by myself.
I met up with the others and we spent the rest of the day cooling off and (exhausting ourselves) at the beach.
The next morning I got up at 5 am and headed into the old town. There were a few people stumbling around from the night before and other keen GoT fans, but I mostly had the city to myself.
Then it was time to continue up the coast to Biograd. We were getting on a boat for a week the next day so we spent the following day organising and buying supplies. We finally got to board the boat at about 5 pm.
Strong winds kept us at the marina until the next morning, but once we got going it was worth the wait.
The wind even died down enough for a couple of drone photos.
The Croatian islands have a whole ecosystem built around the boating community. Some islands are only accessible by private boats and have restaurants and shops that popup only for the summer months. Often the restaurants own the mooring buoys in the harbours so the cost of mooring is included in the price of dinner.
We went to one restaurant where they came by dinghy a couple of hours before dinner to take our order.
And then we took our own dinghy later to get to shore.
This restaurant even had its own beach club included.
That night I decided to sleep on deck.
Which meant I woke up to this.
When the others woke up I went for a kayak around the harbour.
And soon picked up a copilot.
That night I managed to convince Hayley to sleep on deck too.
And this time she was the first one in the water.
We spent the next couple of days exploring the islands and enjoying the sunshine.
And the nights sleeping on deck under the stars.
We even explored an abandoned U-boat base.
There was always someone ready to help with the anchor.
On our last day at sea, our amazing skipper Damjan told us that we were going to have to navigate around a couple of storms. Pretty soon we could see why.
We skirted around (and a bit through) the storms for the next couple of hours. It was great having an experienced local skipper with us.
I even got time in-between sheets of rain to take some moody selfies.
Mooring spots were filling up fast due to the weather. We had to abandon one harbour when we couldn’t get a spot. We finally found a space in a protected cove with a pizzeria, a general store, an ATM and a stunning view.
The next day was my birthday. I woke up early and headed out for a kayak on the (now much calmer) bay.
And then returned to a surprise birthday breakfast.
It was our last day on the boat. We’d had an amazing time.
But the day wasn’t over. For our entire trip Hayley had been desperate to go parasailing for the first time. When we got back to Biograd we went to the water sports centre to see if the weather conditions were ok. There were! However we had to pay in cash (everything in Croatia is done in cash), they were closing in 20 minutes as it was nearly sunset and the nearest ATM was 5 minutes away. I raced to the ATM, got some cash, and made it back just in time for us to get suited up and on the boat.
Turns out the view is pretty good at sunset.
We got our of our harnesses and decided to finish the day with an evening at a little carnival by the beach.
And then it was time to head back to the marina to spend our last night on the boat before checking out in the morning.
That was it for Croatia. It was off to the airport for the Scandinavian leg of our trip.
