The Terror

It began like the sound of an approaching tube train at 3:30 in the morning.

I woke up to hear the roaring turn into vibration as if a train was thundering through the bedroom. The chandeliers and every item on the bathroom shelves was rattling as a "chink-chink-chink-chink". I jumped out of bed. My wife Maria also jumped out of bed, but lost her balance on the shaking floor and fell against the wall.

I ran through our bathroom to the top of the stairs to rescue our daughter below. The power was off and the house was in pitch darkness. I ran down the stairs as the shaking began to subside.

Calm returned. I sat down. My heart was pounding, and I felt sick with fear.

We spent the rest of the night prepared to run out of the house, as the true horror began to emerge on the RAI24 news channel.

We were safe, and our house was intact. We heard the commotion of voices and movements from the piazza through the night, and the occasional cascading rumble of collapsing masonry.

In the morning we came to realise the true extent of the damage to our town, annd the devastation around us.

Vis to Pescara

Vbroska to Vis

Hvar to Vbroska

We had heard many favourable reports about Vbroska, and as we were in need of water and electricity this was an attractive choice of marina for an overnight.

Once we had finished the last work telephone calls on Friday evening we slipped free of the mooring buoy in Hvar and headed clockwise around the island.

We anchored overnight in Uvala Vira on the north side of the peninsular. The mooring buoys were all taken, so we anchored stern-to in a small inlet on the eastern shore.

The bay is not particularly attractive, with deep water, and a (presumably naturist) campsite on the central headland with stone mole to protect the campers' dayboats.

In the morning we witnessed an amazing spectacle over breakfast:

A middle-aged man, naked and apparently alone on a 44 foot motorboat, slipped his mooring buoy, and let the boat gently drift out to sea.

He then jumped off the transom and disappeared into the water. The boat continued to drift in the morning breeze out toward the open water. Visions of Reggie Perring and Robert Maxwell came to mind. The man swam to the shore and sat in the morning sun watching the boat drift further away. After twenty minutes of this, the onboard friend must have finally woken up, and the engines burst in to life. I never managed to see how the story ended...

After breakfast we sailed out of the bay into a freshening breeze in the Hvarski Kanal.

Vinogradisce to Hvar

Hvar has received a bad press from many who visit, but we were pleasantly surprised.

We motored around from Vinogradisce, through the narrows, and picked up one of the mooring buoys on the NW entrance to the bay. From this location it was easy to motor to the main quayside in the rib, without being too close to the hustle and bustle of the town.

The fuelling jetty in the eastern bay was shallow, inaccessible and crowded. I resorted to transporting across couple of 25L jerrycans in the rib, which was timeconsuming but doable.

Hvar may have benefited from being out of season, but we enjoyed the holidaymaker atmosphere, and Maria loved the shopping, and bought a pile of Hvar made custom shirts and tops. I was sceptical at the time, but as the months have passed, I have realised how good quality were her purchases.

We had a few work issues to contend with whilst we were Hvar, so we found it very helpful to use the the outside terrace of the Riva Hotel on the quayside as a temporary office. The free Wifi definitely justified the consumption of a few club sandwiches and a few Campari sodas after sundown.

Although the bustle of the town was enjoyable during the day, the quality of food suffered from the ready market of tourists, and we were glad not to have moored too close to the late night revellers.

We have not yet visited either Starigrad or Korcula, so we hope that these will turn out to keep the best aspects but lose the worst of Hvar.

Scedro to Vinogradisce

We left Manastir with a vow to return.

It was time to checkout the ACI marina at Palmizana, reprovision, and to check emails etc.

The passage from Scedro to Palmizana was uneventful, but pleasant.

Komiza to Scedro

With our formalities completed we left Komiza and navigated the south coast of Vis enroute to Scedro. There is very little written about this coastline, so we explored and documented the coves and bays along the way.

Scedro

We love Scedro. We particularly love Manastir, and Pablo's little restaurant and harbour.

As arrived in the narrow creek, and tied up to the innermost mooring buoy, Pablo and his son motored out to us to advise that a Bora was forecast overnight. They helped us to secure a heavy warp to the next mooring buoy, and to take further lines ashore. In the calm shelter of the creek, it was hard to imagine that this would be necessary, but we had still to experience our first Bora.

We relaxed and swam in the late afternoon, and then motored the tender ashore for a meal at Pablo's little open air restaurant.

There was little sign of wind, and the forecast appeared to have been a false alarm. Pablos wife described the menu options, all fish caught that day by Pablo, and we chose fresh grilled seabass for Maria, and grilled Calamari for me.