We're home!

We made it! On October 1st we got to the marina in Monfalcone and put Heron in her berth. 

We left Medulin bay one day later than we planned. On Monday, 28th of September, it was still raining till the afternoon and it was blowing quite strongly. So we decided to stay one more night. In the evening we had bright pink sunset, that painted the town of Medulin across the bay in surreal colours,...

...and the rest of the bay as well.

In eight days that we were anchored there our boat made almost a perfect circle around the anchor. As you see the anchor position doesn't seem to be in the centre of the circle, though in reality it is. This is biggest shortcoming of the anchor watch function that we use on our AIS system, which requires us to run downstairs during anchoring to press the reset button and we rarely press it exactly in the moment when anchor hits the ground. It would help if one could offset the anchor position afterwards, but that is unfortunately not possible.

On Tuesday we sailed off rather early, and after lifting the anchor I went back to bed. I got out again when we already rounded the SW tip of Istria and were sailing through Brioni islands. There were lots of jellyfish in the water, but we didn't think of going swimming anyway, since water got colder after all bad weather.

Weather was sunny and nice, but not very warm any more. Near town of Rovinj we saw a European shag or vranjek guarding the W cardinal marker.

Rovinj is really pretty...

...from both sides. We need to visit it sometime.

Another pretty town we sailed by - Vrsar.

And one more - Novigrad. Istria is really very beautiful, if it only had the clear blue sea as Dalmatia, it would be perfect for sailing and for holiday.

Another Shag on another cardinal marker - this one was at the entrance of Dalja bay, where we spent the night.

Next morning we sailed to Umag to clear out of Croatia. Then we sailed around Savudirja lighthouse towards Slovenija.

Just two days before, Slovenija lifted quarantine requirements for Istria, which made us very happy. For clearing in we tied Heron to the customs pier in Piran. Everything went smoothly, finally something was going our way! Piran was looking very pretty in autumn sun.

We sailed off right away towards Koper, where we took some fuel, and then sailed to Debeli rtič, where we anchored for the night. 

We got up early the next morning again, we wanted to reach the channel that leads to marina in high tide. We were a bit nervous if Italian police would stop us when we cross the border, but nobody came by and in the middle of the day we were at the entrance to the channel. A Shag was welcoming us from the channel marker.

After another half hour we tied Heron into her berth. Then we had a nice gin&tonic in marina bar, and then we started packing. Captains brother and his wife did us a huge favour and brought our car to marina few days earlier, so we loaded as much of our possessions as possible into it and drove home in the evening. It was so nice, but also a bit strange, to sleep in our bed, that wasn't moving. 

After all the excitement of last few days, long sailing and worrying about crossing the borders, it was a bit of an anti-climax to be home. Like we didn't really know what to do next. It took couple of days to stove away everything we brought from the boat and the adrenalin level to drop to normal level. 

First on our list were visits to our moms. We were all so very happy to finally get together after such a long time. We wanted also to get together with friends, but covid situation was getting worse by the day and we rather had long phone calls with them.

Last week, for Captains birthday we spent two days in Vila Bled, former presidential residence, now a hotel. Our room had incredible view over the lake and the island.

From hotel terrace we walked down to the lake...

...and along the path around the lake. Views were breathtaking almost from every point, this is the castle on the cliff on the other side of the lake.

We saw a blackbird munching on berries. He'll need all the fat he manages to build up when the winter comes.

We also saw a pretty big lake trout.

We were so lucky that we had such nice weather for the walk.

Afterwards we drove to another pretty lake not far away, to Bohinj lake.

We made a walk towards the waterfall Savica, but we didn't go all the way there, it was getting late and the light was already fading.

Although the next day the weather got rainy and cold, the view from our balcony was still stunning. And the food we had was amazing.

Last day, before returning home, we visited Zelenci springs. It is wetland near town of Kranjska Gora, where there is a source of Sava Dolinka river. There was already some snow around...

...and also surrounding mountains were all white.

The colour of Zelenci is vivid green, even on a cloudy day.

This past week was not very happy, the covid situation exploded in Slovenija just like almost everywhere else in Europe and every couple of days there are new restrictions. We can't drive to my mom any more, we can only travel within our region, in two days shopping malls are closing and only food stores and some technical stores remain open. It feels like deja vu from Spring, I just hope it doesn't last so long. 

But I'm happy we're back in our beautiful house, with pretty surroundings, and that we were able to visit our moms and had few great days in Bled when we still could. 

Heron is on the hard from today and Captain drove to marina this morning to prepare her for winter. And for the possibility that we are unable to drive there for couple of months. I still hope that doesn't happen.

I'll still post here from time to time to let you know how everything is, and maybe I'll be able to make a nice photo or two as well. Stay safe.