Spring sailing

This spring was very busy for us, we had several projects in and around our house. But we managed to finish everything by second half of May and then spent two weeks on our boat. This year the spring was rather cold and even on the coast it was not warm and weather was very unstable, with lots of wind and occasional rain. So it was clear to me that there will not be much swimming in the sea and absolutely no snorkelling yet, water temperatures were as well low at 18 deg C.

So we decided to not sail long distances and stay in protected anchorages. And Captain immediately made a long list of boat projects we should do.

First thing was to wrap our steering wheels with twine. The old covering made of leather was damaged by long usage and sun and the stitches on it were disintegrating, so we had to do something. This is how our first steering wheel turned out and it looked quite good.

Captain even made som embellishment, also to mark the center position on it.

We did this while spending two days in by Vinišče. Next we moved to N side of island Čiovo, wind was shifting to SE and Vinišče was too exposed. We were almost alone when we sailed into the bay Racetinovac and the weather was still good.

To the North there was Trogir.

Despite the cool water we went for a short swim almost every day.

But as is usual with NE wind, soon the rain came with it.

The bay was still very pretty and we managed to do a lot of projects.

After couple of days we started to move back North. On our way Captain was still doing small projects and as you can see, we still had to do our right steering wheel. We finished that a couple of days later in bay Mirina.

This is bay Vinišče where we spent our first two nights, I took this photo when we were sailing by it when returning from Čiovo. We were really surprised when we were there to see over 20 boats in there on Saturday evening, it is not something we expected in May in not very nice weather.

This project took several days, our old baskets for veggies and fruits were literally falling apart, so we bought new baskets in Ikea, but had make the drawer slides of wood and also stain it to the similar colour as the cabinet. And I think this was another successful project.

Last couple of days we again spent in bay Mirina, next to Croatian Chinese wall. Finally the weather was a bit better again.

But the temperatures were just right for bread baking. This is my second attempt to bake buns in my Omnia stove top "oven" and the result was quite tasty.

Buns were not very crusty on the top, but the top is not very crusty even when I bake bread in the oven, since it can only heat from below. But I can see using Omnia in summer when it is way too warm to preheat and then bake in real oven.

Before sailing back to marina we made a stop on Prokljan lake, we anchored right in the NW edge near where the small river Guduča is flowing into the lake. We were alone and this was a nice contrast to the amount of boats that were already sailing at sea.

This was another project we did, we removed the tape with which we tried to seal our big panoramic window last year, but weren't very successful. We tried new tape, the translucent one, but had a lot of work with removal of the glue of the previous tape.

Once back in the marina we had a nice meal in restaurant Dalmatino and I made a couple of photos of animals that live in and around the marina.

There is a lot of algae in the shallow part near marina and ducks and swans and frogs love it.

There is a turtle in the middle of the photo.

We also made a small trip around the area, first we visited Jadrija on the W side of the entrance on the canal to Šibenik. We saw these pretty changing cabins...

...and an interesting sailboat sailing out of the canal.

This is the fortress across the canal.

We also made a stop at the bridge on Jadranska magistrala over the canal.

Before I drove home I also saw some swans with babies...

...lots of ducks...

...and pretty flowers.

Then I returned home and Captain stayed at the boat.
 

Progress

Winter was rather cold, but not much snow. We didn't do much, partly due to my limited ability to walk, apart from going to physiotherapy, occasional trip to the store and visits to my mom. While my feet are getting better, I'm still not there yet.

This was taken from the parking lot of our nearest supermarket in January, there was a stunning sunset that coloured the Kamniške alps in surreal pink. I didn't really want to photograph all these cars, but the light and the colours were fading so fast, so I realised that by the time I would manage to limp to the other side of car park it would probably be all over already.

Slowly I took over the kitchen again and had a try on focaccia art.

We saw this beautiful sunset when visiting my mom.

In February we spent couple of days in a hotel in Portorož. We were spending mornings and evenings in the pools with plenty of water jets and my feets and legs were very happy with massage with sea water. This was the view from our balcony.

Despite the cold wind we were making long walks during the days, although quite slow ones.

Rosemary was already blooming.

As the spring was coming, other flowers stared to bloom as well.

We saw a lot of them on our walk to Krim in late March. We didn't walk all the way up, that would be too much for me, but we parked our car a bit more than kilometer below the peak and then walked from there.

The views from the peak were great. Down there on the right on flatland there is our house somewhere and in the distance are Julian alps.

In the beginning of April we drove to Skradin to our boat for four days. It was the first time for me after six months and since I injured my legs. Tomaz was there twice in between, to check if everything was all right. The weather wasn't great, so we didn't plan on sailing but stayed in marina. But we still went for a walk along river Krka and around waterfalls every day. 

This is Roški slap (waterfall), some 30 minutes up the river by car.

The place is most famous for series of small rapids named Ogrlice (Necklaces). 

My highlight was finding these pretty orchids right beside the road.

On our way back to the boat we made a stop at a lookout above the Visovac monastery on the island.

Next day we made a standard tour - we sailed from Skradin to lowest waterfall by tourist boat and then made a hike around the waterfalls. There was unusually lot of rain before we came and the level of water was very high. It looked really wild and magnificent.

These bridges are usually not in the water.

There weren't too many animals around yet, we saw only one frog and no dragonflies, but plenty of birds and ducks.

I really can't get tired of this place, it is magical.

We also managed to do some small stuff around the boat and a bit of cleaning. We plan on driving back again in May and do some sailing as well.