The shortest day of the year

On Sunday, the shortest day of the year, we drove to Krk to check up on Heron. Day was sunny and relatively warm, it felt more like spring than winter. Not that we minded. 

We were pleased to see that Heron was well and dry. These are our neighbours.

We didn't have much to do, our priority was to tape over the hatch that was leaking and to take back with us the mattresses covers to wash and dry them. We also measured some other hatches that we decided to renew - we have to order them first and then next year the old ones come out and new ones will be built in. Captain also connected the household batteries, that are constantly topped up by solar panels, with engine battery that could drain out during the winter.

After all was done, we returned to the pier.

We had to paddle, the community dinghy was missing the outboard.

We drank a cup of coffee in the afternoon sun and walked around for a while. I was hoping to take some underwater photos of the tunicates in the port, I even remembered to take my camera with me, but the water was not very clear and the visibility was rather poor. So it will have to wait for the next time.

On our way back we made a stop near the mud marsh. There was a Heron there and a White Egret, and a lot of other birds. Unfortunately it was impossible to get closer.

In summer people actually bathe here, the mud is supposed to be good for the skin.

It was a lovely day, even though it was so short. And from here it is only getting better, whith all the holidays and days growing longer!

Happy Holiday and all the best in 2015 to all!

It is that time of the year again

Can't believe it's been so long from my last post. This means not much has happened in the meantime and the time of the year is not very inspiring for writing and taking photos.

In November we managed to find a sunny day to drive to Krk to see if everything was ok with Heron. We did some boat projects, we changed the oil and oil filter in Heron's engine, and we emptied all the cabinets and lockers and took all the food home with us. Unfortunately just before leaving we noticed that one of the port hatches was leaking more than we thought and the water, which was plenty due to rainy weather, soaked one of the mattresses and it started to mould. And I thought mould and mildew were the things of warm and moist Caribbean summers! We moved the mattress, put some tarp in place to catch the water, but we didn't have anything to tape down or mend the porthole, so we will need to do it another time.

Amongst all the work and worries we found some time to have a nice lunch right on the pier. Sitting on the pier in the sun, eating grilled calamari and sipping the delicious local wine is my kind of seaside trip. The sea was very calm and even the water in the port was very clear, so I took some photos of things in the water. Unfortunately only with my phone and from above the water.

This is one of the Tunicates, growing on the line.

And Mediterranean fan worms (Spalanzanijevi cevkarji) are growing from the pier wall.

The small white things are also Tunicates, the translucent delicate kind, similar to ones I found in Coco bay in Barbuda.

I was lucky to get another great book about under water life. It is a book called Naše morje (Our sea), written by Marjan Richter, who is also the author of more than 800 photos found in the book. The photos were taken in Gulf of Trieste, so really in our Slovenian sea, during his dives in last 50 years. Photos are totally beautiful, and although the book is not so systematic as "Pod gladino Mediterana" by Tom Turk, that I got this summer, I still learned a lot of new things. For example, I now know what the funny little black bells on photo below are - they are the Sepia eggs (sipina jajčeca), neatly tied to stem of Mediterranean fan worm.

The winter is almost here, days are getting short and grey. Every year this time has the same effect on me - I start dreaming of sun, turquoise water, palm trees, warmth. Places like Maledives, Caribbean, Thailand. For years it was a starting gun for me to plan a vacation, we usually flew to some place warm in January. Exception was last year, when we had a feeling we just came home from 2-years vacation in Caribbean, so the urge was not yet there. But it's back again this year. Not yet sure what we're going to do about it, but I can certainly daydream.