Summer sailing

After the cold May sailing we were again on the boat at the beginning of June. While the weather was getting really summery with temperatures of air of over 30 degrees, the water was still rather cold. And I decided to postpone the snorkelling to real Summer.

This time we didn't have as many projects to finish as in May, but there are always so many small chores one has to do on the boat, that we were never bored.

First night we spent on Prokljan lake, at the very NW part of it where the small creek Guduča is flowing into the lake.

We did a small trip with the dinghy next morning into the creek estuary ...

and into the creek itself - between the trees on the right and the tall reeds, where you think it is impossible to sail through. The area is a bird sanctuary, and while we heard lots of chirping and even saw many dragonflies, all the creatures were either too far or too fast to photograph.

The temperatures were really high already in late morning so we shortened our trip and sailed out to sea, where there is always some breeze. 

We spent two nights on the S side of Čiovo in a very nice bay behind small island of Sveta Fumija, it is very well protected especially from SE wind we were having for a couple of days. Unfortunately the area is very popular with party boats and party flotillas and the noise was really hard to bear. I'm really sad that so many people just want to party with deafeningly loud music, it has nothing to do with sailing and listening to waves and wind.

We also spent two days in bay Mirina where the "Chinese wall" is.

One morning we were watching a small drama in the water - small Mediterranean sand smelts (veliki gavuni or Atherina hepsetus) were hunted by Sea needles (igle or Belone belone), you can see them in right lower corner of the school.

And here are the hunters.

I drove back home for two weeks and we were back on the boat in the beginning of July with our friends. 

First night we anchored in bay Zaražanj on Zmajan. Next morning, after a short stop for swimming near small island of Ravan, we sailed to island Žirje to bay Kabal.

It was still very hot and the water also warmer, so it was a good opportunity for snorkelling. The bay is open to SE and gets lots of fresh sea water and there was lots of life under water.

This pretty fish could be a Ocellated wrasse (pavlinka or Symphodus ocellatus), although it doesn't look completely as one. But it doesn't look lika any other fish in my books either. 

This one is no mystery, it is a Damselfish or Mediterranean chromis (črnik or Chromis chromis), this one looks like it is going to have babies soon.

There were plenty of colourful algae there, the orange one is read algae (topovejnata lavrencija or Laurencia obtusa), I don't know the name of the white one.

 These are the Sea grapes (grozdasta kavlerpa or Caulerpa recemosa), they are even edible.

There were many Hope's elysias  (pisanček  or Thuridilla hopei) on the rocks, these two are in company of white Peacock's tail algae (lijakasta padina or Padina pavonica).

I'm not sure which algae the yellow ball in the middle is, but I find it pretty. Beside Laurencia and Sea grapes there is also a brown algae (ploščata razcepljenka or Dictyota dichotoma) in left lower corner of the photo. 

 This is a Red-black tripplefin (rdeči sprehajalček or Tripterygion tripteronotus).

Next night we spent near island of Kotula vela and we were quite surprised that it was not very crowded.

Next morning I went snorkelling and found this huge ball of Murex shell eggs.

And here is a Spiny-die murex (bodičasti volek or Bolinus brandaris).

This is a Painted comber  (pirka or Serranus scriba) with it's pretty blue belly.

This is a Bucchich's goby (pikasti glavač or Gobius bucchichii).

I guess this is an empty crab carapace (oklep), I larter saw another one. Crabs have to regularly change their "coat" while growing, when the old one gets too tight they shed it and grow a bigger one, and while it is hardening, they are very vulnerable.

This glowing creature is a Beadlet anemone (rdeča morska vetrnica or konjska vetrnica or Actinia equina).

 This is a pretty red algae also named Pink dragon's breath (lepa halimenija or Halymenia floresia).

This is a beautiful Tube anemone (peščena roža or Cerianthus membranaceus).

 These bubbles are made by brown Cyanobacterium (mikrokoleus or Microcoleus vaginatus).

We planned to sail through Kornati islands and wanted to anchor as near as possible the evening before. Our first choice was Kurba mala with donkeys on it, but the best anchor place was already taken, donkeys came to say very loud hello, and we sailed on to the next island...

...Skala vela, that is maybe even prettier, but is inhabited with goats instead donkeys.

  In the afternoon we had a proper air show - two airplanes Air tractor were flying over us...

...then were taking water very near...

...and were trying to dump the water onto a small rocky island, even when the sailboats were relatively near.

And the next morning the air show continued, this time with Canadair, again flying over the boat, taking water...

...and dumping it onto the same island as the Air tractors the day before.

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.