Sometimes it snows in april

So, here I am again, after a very long time. Not that there is so much to write about, but I wanted to let you know we're still alive and ok. The winter was grey and depressive, and there was not much inspiration for writing. Because of lockdown there was very little we were allowed to do, we couldn't travel much or meet our friends. And of course we were not able to drive to our boat.

We had some nice weather in March, it was sunny and pretty warm during the days. It was sunny and everything started to bloom.

I also turned 60 in March, we had a couple of nice parties with our families and friends. First two cakes I made myself, both were really good - the chocolate mousse cake...

...and the lemon curd pavlova...

 

...and this pretty and delicious chocolate pear cake my friends made for me.

I also got plenty of presents, as well as beautiful flowers.

After pretty great March we got a very cold weather front that came from Scandinavia in April, that not only brought a good amount of snow, but also very low temperatures. My flowers were covered with snow...

...and apple tree in bloom also.

It got to -10 deg C in the night and all the leaves and blossoms and even some branches on fruit trees froze, as well as many other plants. 

Later in spring weather got better and Corona situation as well, so we were able to travel around Slovenija. On a really sunny day we visited the remains of the San Sergio fortress above the village of Črni kal. There is a great view from there to Triest...

...and over the highway to Istria.

There were some pretty flower along the way.

The village of Črni kal

And the fortress

It is built on a rock that is separated from the rest of ridge and can be accessed only over the bridge. The vertical wall is very popular with climbers, as you can see below the bridge.

Since my plants, that normally bloom in spring, got covered in snow in April, they obviously thought it was another winter and they started to bloom again in May.

Most of the trees and plants recovered, there was no blooms on any of them, so there will be no fruits this year. But we're glad they are not dead.

At the moment things are looking up, weather-wise and also Corona-wise. We're having warm summery weather, both Captain and myself have been vaccinated already, so we can travel as well. Captain is already sailing in Croatia, I'm joining him later in June for couple of days and then in August and September. I guess he is happy, as always on Heron, and I'm taking care for house and garden and trying to catch up with all of our friends we haven't seen the whole year. But this summer we're staying close to home, in Croatia, situation still feels too uncertain to make plans for longer travel. But in following months there will be more posts, at least about sailing and snorkelling in Adriatic.

End of the year

As the end of 2020 is approaching,  we wish you all a much better 2021, with all the things we were missing in this year - spending time with family and friends, parties, traveling, eating out.... 

ALL THE BEST IN 2021!

Instead of whining and complaining about the current situation, here are couple of photos of few nice moments in last months.

I found this beautiful beast in in my garden in beginning of November. It is a Southern Darter or Sredozemski kamenjak (Sympetrum meridionale). I was surprised that I found him out so late, but this year we had a very warm November.

Just look at these eyes. And shoulders...

 On rare occasion we make an outing. On one of the days as we had fog in the valley, we drove to Rakitna, it is just high enough to have more sunshine.

The lake was pretty, with a bit of fog lying on the surface...

...and even some ice in shady spots.

The most interesting thing we saw was a fresh water crab. He was wandering about and wasn't camera shy at all.

Captain's phone is water-proof and so he was even able to take some under-water photos.

We were happy to have such a nice weather for our walk...

...since this kind of weather was awaiting us in the valley.

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.