Servicing Heron's life raft

This spring we need to renew the boat registration for Heron. Heron flies Slovenian flag and here the pleasure boat registration has to be renewed every 5 years. But before that, boat must be inspected and before that life raft and fire extinguishers must be serviced, and any expired flares replaced with new ones. It is not only time consuming, but also costly.

Getting the life raft off the boat and bringing it to the servicing shop was already a project. We waited for a weekend with reasonably nice weather, drove to Krk and got the almost 70kg heavy life raft into the dinghy, then onto the pier and then brought it to our car. It was just the two of us and I don't think we would have managed it in wet weather.

Then on another day (with reasonably nice wether) we drove it to Koper to have it serviced.

Here it is already sitting on a nice rug in servicing shop.

It was then opened...

... taken out of the plastic "shell"...

... unpacked and inflated.

The water supply...

... and the dry food was removed, both was already expired.

The raft was inflated with the air pistol similar like it is used for car tires. They didn't use the life raft's gas tank for it, or they would have to replace that too and it would cost another 100 something eur. But like the fire extinguishers the gas tank is checked for its weight and pressure too.

The plastic hose with the bag at it's end is used to capture the rain from the "roof", the quantity of water supply in life raft is not very big, just 1,5 litre per person.

There's a lot of other stuff in the raft, like the torch, batteries, flares,...

... paddles, first aid kit, survival instructions, kit for mending the raft,...

... and fishing kit. It is all checked and everything that is expired, is replaced before raft is packed back in its shell again..

This was the first time that we saw how our life raft really looks like, so we took a good look. Especially the captain. And we were both happy with it's quality.

After life raft is inflated they leave it for couple of hours to check if it is leaking. That meant that we had to leave it in the shop and would not get it back that day.

We decided to make a good use of the rest of the nice day. Our first stop was the marsh near Koper, there's a lot of birds there. We saw and heard plenty of them, but none came close enough to make a decent photo.

Not even when we were hidden behind a wall...

Our next stop was at the salt plants at Strunjan. It consists of several channels...

... and a lot of basins where the sea water is left to evaporate and the salt is then collected. Here it is all still done by hand, the old way.

In winter the salt production is not possible due to low temperatures and not enough sun, and seagulls and other birds have the basins all to themselves.

We also found this pretty jellyfish.

On early afternoon some very dark and mean clouds started to appear to the East. Later as we drove home, we saw fresh snow near Postojna (some 30km inland), that probably came from these clouds.

But looking towards West it could have been a summer day.

Our next stop was Izola. We had a very delicious pizza there, and even ate it on the terrace of the restaurant. It wasnt very warm, maybe around 12 deg C, but there was snow forecast for next couple of days, so we wanted to make the most of the sun and the weather and also the nice area.


After the lunch we made a stroll around the marina and the piers. Here are the cormorants, drying their plumage, sitting on a half sunken dinghy.

One of Izola's piers, in the back below the clouds there is already Italian coast.

We picked the life raft a week later and then drove it from Koper directly to Heron. Again it was just the two of us lifting the heavy thing from the car to dinghy and onto the boat again.

And in the meantime we also serviced fire extinguishers and replaced expired flares and successfully completed the boat inspection.

About sharks

The other day I saw a tv documentary about the sharks in Palau. As everywhere else in the world sharks are being ruthlessly finned there - "shark-finning" is the process of catching sharks, cutting off their fins and throwing the rest of the fish, still alive, back into the ocean to die. Sharks drown because they cannot swim without fins. Sharks in Palau are not fished by the locals, but by foreign ships and the fins end up mostly in China, Taipei and Honk Kong. Not only is Palau robbed of it's sharks, the profits also end up elsewhere. Locals have traditionally great respect for sharks and are aware of how important sharks are for tourism. They founded Palau Shark Sanctuary and I really hope they will succeed in protecting their sharks.

It reminded me of a adventure we had with sharks in Mauritius. In 2003 we were there on holiday and booked several scuba-diving trips with the local diving shop. Diving was really good, mostly thanks to Feroz, the dive master, that took us to great diving sites and was able to show us even the smallest beauties.

This is me...

.... and this is Feroz's hand with nudibranch on it. Sorry for the quality of photos, but these were the early days of our under-water photography.

One day Feroz suggested we should visit the site called "Shark pit". The site is at the small island several miles from Mauritius, only accessible in good weather. It took an hour to get there with fast motorboat and we planned to make two dives. First was the "Shark Pit". The site looks like a big sunken bowl, around 14m deep in the middle, with the "rims" also couple of meters under water. Waves break over these rims and the water is full of small air bubbles. It is assumed that this is the reason why sharks gather in this bowl in such a numbers, they slowly circle the bowl and enjoy oxygenated sea. It was not easy to get over the rim of the bowl through the breaking waves. Once inside, we positioned ourselves at the bottom near a big rock. And then the show begun. There were at least 15 grey reef sharks, circling the bowl, and all the time keeping their eyes on us. If we would try to get closer to them, they would swim away. So we just sat there, very still and calm, for almost an hour.

This is taken without the zoom.

This also, my eyes were really that wide.

Here you can see the bubbles in the water.

My favourite shark was the one with the broken back fin, looked a bit like a killer whale.

Other fish felt overlooked and often forced themselves in front of the camera.

Feroz and myself on the boat after the first dive.

The second dive on the other side of the island, here we are posing between the gorgonian corals.

And this is captain riding a bike, on a dive a couple of days later.

All the dives we did in Mauritius were really good, but most impressive for me was the dive at Shark pit. We were diving with sharks before, but never were we so close for such a long time. It is to day one of my best dives.

Couple of months later, as we were already at home, I saw a French documentary about Shark pit on tv. There were several divers and biologists there, diving, setting up under water cameras, and trying to understand why the sharks like that place so much. They couldn't really find the answer. And about two years later I saw again a documentary on tv (I admit, I am a tv junkie), again about sharks around Mauritius. As it turned out, after Shark pit was on tv, fishing boats came and caught and finned all the sharks and the Shark pit was empty. Biologists were able to find another place where sharks gathered near Mauritius, but didn't want to disclose the location - to prevent what happened to Shark pit from happening again. I was so sad, it seems to me such a waste to kill such a powerful and elegant animal just to take the fins.

I know sharks are not officially declared endangered like whales or sea turtles - which I would of course never eat. But I think they should be. Don't think that would impress Chinese, nor stop them, but would maybe stop the selling of Shark fin soup in the rest of the world. And in a long run, with more awareness, who knows... In the meantime, I believe that every one of us can contribute - or not - to the survival of sharks, however small the contribution. So the next time you are in Chinese restaurant, please choose some other delicious soup, not the Shark fin one.

P.S. It looks like the sharks are back at Shark pit, found couple of videos from last couple of years on Youtube, but with less sharks than we saw.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2016!

Sailing from Krk to Kornat and back - part 5

In the evening we returned to a small bay next to new ferry harbour, right to the West of the lighthouse.

At first glance it doesn't look like a good anchorage, water is quite deep and the bay not very big. We checked it with the mask, bottom is sandy and offers good holding, there are no rocks right up to the shore and the pine trees smell heavenly. Late in the evening we even saw an owl. We were alone there, I don't think there would be space for another boat. Only some fishermen boats came by in the evening and the night was very peaceful.

In the morning some of us were in the water at sunrise, others enjoyed the early sun.

After nice breakfast we sailed towards West and had to say goodbye to my brother's family.

We had an appointment later in the day in Stara Baška on island Krk. I was surprised how much colder the water there was, only 23 deg C, around island Rab it was around 27 deg C. It must be because of all the fresh water springs that are on and in the sea around island Krk.

In the afternoon we sailed on to Vela luka, we tacked (zig-zaged) against Burja (N-E wind), that was blowing through Senj strait (Senjska vrata). It is really amazing how strong the wind here can get, even in nice sunny weather and very little wind everywhere else.

I like Vela luka very much, also because it's so protected. OK, it is much nicer late in the evening and in the morning, during the day there are many power boats bringing tourists to the beach, and it can get noisy and boats create big swell. Another reason why I like it are the sheep, that come to the beach from the hills in the evening. Before that they are "shouting" loudly to one another over the bay and it echoes from the rocks and the hills. There must be a spring or two of fresh water somewhere, because they all converge to the same spot on the beach. One day we will actually dinghy to the beach and take a look.

Next morning I quickly jumped into the water, before the hordes of tourists started arriving. Bay is not too interesting, but I still found some nice things.

I like this sea urchin, that tried to camouflage itself with everything that was available - from Feather star (Morska lilija) to empty shells.

This is a Red anemone (Rdeča morska vetrnica), it can be found in very shallow water, here I found it attached to the rocky wall that was dropping into the sea.

It was our last day of our holiday. We decided to make another stop in Luka Srščica before we returned to Klimno. There were quite a few boats there already.

Of course I went snorkelling there, I wouldn't miss the last snorkelling opportunity. First thing I noticed as I swam across the bay, was that there were no Fan mussels (Leščurjev) any more. I distinctly remember seeing some before. Soon I find the reason for that - a pile of empty Fan mussels shells - so they were eaten, despite being protected.

As I swam along the rocky East shore I found this Black Scorpionfish (Škarpoč). He tried to blend into the surrounding rocks, just to be left alone.

And yet another Red Seasquirt (Rdeči kozolnjak ali Morska breskev)

All the fish in the bay were very nervous. This one - it is one of the Wrasses (Gnezdivka) - was pressed into the ground and frightened swam away when I came close.

On our way back to our buoy in Klimno we saw the funniest thing - cows cooling down in the sea. I probably mentioned that it was really hot most of the time, up to 35 deg C, but I haven't seen anything like this before.

We had some nice Easterly wind on our way back and the sailing was good. Shortly after we left Luka Srščica a butterfly landed on our boat, obviously seeking some shelter from the wind and opportunity to rest. First it landed on the winch.

Then he decided that on the bench next to me is a better place to rest. It was a good opportunity to take a close look at him. It was a Red Admiral (Admiral).

He was sitting there rather motionless for quite a while and we were getting worried. Was he too tired to fly away? Captain had a brilliant idea - maybe he is thirsty, let us give him some watermelon. For quite a while he didn't move, didn't show any interest in watermelon that was right in front of his nose. But after some time he finally started to eat it. Yes!

We were long tied to our buoy in Klimno before he flew away, he was with us for almost an hour. What a nice finish to our vacation.