Sailing the Adriatic - from Hvar back to Murter

First stop after Hvar was again Šolta. We got there late in the afternoon on Tuesday, August the 5th, after some fast sailing very close to the wind (orca, seveda). We stopped in another pretty bay on the South side of the island. Bay was deep and rocky and we Med-moored again.

I went snorkelling straight away, or course.  I found this Blue spiny starfish (Mnogokrako morsko zvezdo).

This sea urchin looked as it was placed for taking pictures.

It was already late and all the creatures were feeding - otherwise this octopus would probably be under some rock.

She tried to get away and to scare me off with changing the colours.

This is a Tompot blenny (Velika babica), take a look at those eyebrows!

This is Dolgoustka, again a well suited name. I couldn't find an English name, but loosely translated it would be Long-mouth.

This is the place where we moored, right under the rocks. See how it's green and lush, all that rain was obviously still good for something.

Next morning, after the breakfast and some snorkelling, we left Šolta and sailed North. In the afternoon we made a stop in Maslenica, we were out of bread. We only did a "touch-down" on one of the piers so that two of the crew could run to the store. They also bought a couple of pizzas, so we had a quick and good lunch, while anchored near one of the little islands North of Maslenica.

In late afternoon we sailed on, and surprisingly the wind turned to Easterly and went to 30 knots in half an hour. The ride was wild and bumpy, but luckily it was not far to our over night anchorage. We stopped South of Rogoznica, hoping to Med-moore in a narrow fjord, but it turned out that we were too late and there were no more space. So we anchored on the shallow at  the mound of fjord.

We had a peaceful night, luckily the wind didn't turn. The evening before it was too dark to go snorkelling, so I went snorkelling already before breakfast. The scenery under water was again different, and I also discovered some things I didn't see before. Like this Green sponge ball (Kroglasti kodij).

I also found this small octopus.

I don't know what this is, it is some kind of algae and it looked pretty.

This pretty one is called Painted comber (Pirka in Slovene), he is very territorial, I guess that's why he's giving me that look.

The small blue fishes look like they were photographed on tropical coral reef. It is somehow true, these are young ones of Damselfish (Črnik in Slovene), it is the only kind of Chromis in Adria, all the rest live on coral reefs.

This one is not only pretty, also the English name is pretty - Snakelocks anemone, in Slovene it is Voščena morska vetrnica. If you look closely, there are tiny little shrimps hiding between the arms - the Mysid shrimps (Roječe kozice).

This is the place where we spent  the night, at the mound of the fjord in the background.

On the way North we passed this pretty small chapel (the stone building on the rocky hill).

In the afternoon we stopped in Kremik marina to fuel up and to get some water at the gas station. And some ice creams. Further North we sailed by this small island, and there was a beautiful sweet smell in the air, like of the carnations. And again I got the idea to buy an island like this when I have enough money...

We made a stop for the night in the bay on the South-West of the small island of Zmajan. It was very pretty, with crystal clear green and blue water. There were several motor boats there when we came, but they left in the evening and only a couple of sailboats and a bigger motor yacht stayed over night. It was very peaceful, until later, when it was already dark, a local boat came with very strong light and a very long stick, like 3m long, and started hunting for octopuses. The light was pointed into the water and the boat circled slowly in the shallow water and every now and then the fisherman poked into the water with the long stick. I was shocked when I saw that they pulled out more than 10 octopuses in half an hour. As much as I like to eat octopus, this seemed rather cruel, I was afraid there were no octopuses left in the bay.

In the morning I was in the water again. There were plenty of sea stars, like this Red starfish (Ognjenordeča zvezda).

This one is Annular sea bream, or Špar in Slovene. There were plenty of these and other sea breams there.

The bay was very rocky, with some areas of sand in deeper water, we anchored in one of them. This is how the scenery looked in shallower water.

If this guy wasn't moving, I would't have noticed it.

This is how it looked close up - it is a Wide-eyed flounder (Širokogledi romb). I guess I was lucky to have found it, they are not very common.

There is nothing spectacular on this photo, but I really love the colours. The green algae is Calcareous green alga (Verižica), and a reddish-greenish patches in between are member of red algae (Obrobljene luskavke).

I even found a Red starfish with six arms.

I was happy to find another octopus, especially after the previous night. They kind of grew on me, they look quite intelligent and with lots of personality.

Later that morning we sailed of towards Murter. Weather was nice and sunny and there was enough breeze for a nice sailing.

In the afternoon, after a short swim and a lunch, our friends left. That evening we stayed in Murter archipelago. We were looking forward to next days, as weather forecast was promising really nice and summery weather, after a long time.

P.S. I made a mistake two posts ago, I find the translations to English names on marinespecies.org and not marinespecies.com .