SV Ostinato: Solving of the Missing Sock Mystery

Checking out of Greece in Corfu
Can you find Ostinato? Think small...center left

August 11 - We untied lines early and moved Ostinato around the coast to the Port of Corfu to complete the checking out process required as a non EU yacht. By 1000 Ostinato was on her way north. In 34 hours, or so, we would be in Croatia!

Dolphins ride our bow wake in the
crystal clear waters off the coast of Montenegro

The trip was mainly a motor. Occasionally, we would unfurl the jib for a brief period but the winds were just too light to give us much more than a 1/2 knot boost. And then it would start flapping again and beg to be bought in. We decided to try a 3 hours on and 3 hours off watch system this trip, versus our usual 2/2. It worked well but King admitted to cat napping a bit more than usual. The night sky was a real treat. I always forget how outstanding the sky is during a crossing until I'm forced, dragging and kicking, into doing an overnighter. The reward of seeing such beauty takes away some of the angst of losing a bit of sleep. This night, I was rewarded with witnessing the spectacular Perseids meteor shower. The sky was simply filled with "falling stars" as we crossed the Adriatic.

By mid afternoon, Ostinato had med moored onto the customs quay in Cavtat Croatia. Beyond the roped off area for yachts checking in, the remainder of the quay was filled with fully crewed mega yachts from around Europe. We decided the anchorage would be best for us. Just as we began pulling away from the quay, King noticed we had no propulsion from our starboard side. Oh good grief! After bouncing off of the big catamaran to starboard, we limped to the anchorage sideways and quickly got the anchor down. King went in the water, hoping the prop had simply picked up a plastic bag while on the quay.....no plastic bag. We were both too exhausted to deal with it today. It would be dinner and then to bed. We would "think about that tomorrow".

hmmmm who's chain is this?

We awoke to high entertainment the next morning with front row seats to watch the mega yachts untangle their anchor chains. Each of the big girls as they moved away from the quay found they had a neighbors anchor chain on top of theirs, some had two! Finally, as they moved down the line exiting the quay, the harbour master yelled at Ostinato to move as we were about to be part of the drama. It was time to work on the engine anyway. Long story short, the dampening plate on the starboard engine had disintegrated. The good news was, it had happened before and we had a spare. The on-board magician had it put back together by the end of the day!

The magician at work!

In case you don't know what a pressure plate looks like
its that thing in pieces in the upper left hand corner.

Cavtat anchorage

The holding in the anchorage had been good but it was full of mooring balls making it difficult to squeeze in. As a result, now that we had forward propulsion on both engines, we decided it was time to move around to the anchorage on the other side of Cavtat. Ahhhha, much better. Not a mooring ball in sight in a big lovely bay. Why hadn't we come here sooner?! Of course, we were soon to find out. The anchorage on the back side of Cavtat is mud and weed. Ostinato, sat there quietly for 2 days until a brief storm blew through. With 25 k winds she, along with another 15 yachts at anchor, dragged around the bay, some numerous times, until the winds calmed several hours later. While this location had been great for it's proximity for us to visit the beautiful walled city of Dubrovnik, we no longer felt comfortable leaving Ostinato unattended, it was time to haul anchor and move on.

Dubrovnik walled city

View from the sea

August 18 - We headed north to Zanton, taking a short detour past Dubrovnik's World Heritage designated walled city to catch a glimpse of it's outer walls from the water. Magnificent! The anchor was down by noon and we headed for Zanton's tiny information center to find out about buses back to Dubrovnik. King had a mission. We had purchased a T Mobile sim with 4 G capability but we only had a 3 G dongle. It was time to upgrade......or so that was the plan. We made the afternoon bus going south into the city and began our search for something that apparently does not exist here. Each place we would stop looked at us as if we had 2 heads. Most didn't have 3 G dongles, more less 4. With great reluctance "Mr Ostinato" finally gave up. While waiting for the bus, we drowned our sorrows at a little restaurant across the street with a lovely French wine for me, a coffee frappe for King and a large plate of beautifully lightly breaded squid......aha - much better.

August 19 - Not a lot of planning is going into where we land each night. The ultimate destination is

Mooring for price of a dinner

Split where we will pick up our friend Margaret who will be joining us from the UK the first of September. In the meantime, we are just meandering around. Tonight, after traveling up the Stonski Kanal to catch a quick view of its medieval town walls, we returned to Kobas where we Med moored to Niko's restaurant. Here, we enjoyed a great fish dinner, power on the dock and wifi for about $50. A deal in these waters. We also met the charter boat captain on the yacht tied up next to us who provided us with contacts in Split to discuss our on going main sail and jib problems.

August 20 - 24 We moved over to the island of Mljet with the hopes of finding a few anchorages to slowly work our way up its eastern coast. While we found a number of restaurant quays we could tie to, anchoring was not an option.....and the winds were picking up according to Debrovnik Radio. Matter of fact, each day for the past week they have forecast a gale warning. As you can imagine, after the anchor drag party in Cavtat, I was a bit concerned. However, since we had yet to experience gale force winds, or much of any wind for that matter, we were beginning to get a bit doubting. I finally agreed with King that maybe it was time to turn the radio off and find alternative weather. We finally decided to move on to Polace at the top of the island and spend some time time in the national park. Your ticket into the park allows you to anchor for 7 days. The holding was great and on the 2nd day, Wild Pony, an American catamaran, anchored beside us....and it actually had American's aboard! What luck, Lynn and Dick had been cruising the area for the past 2 months and we were able to get recommendations on places we could visit that allowed you to anchor on your own hook.

A ride to the National park on Mljet island is
included with your anchoring permit

August 25 - Korcula - We entered the anchorage of Uval Luka and immediately spied another American catamaran. Now we know where everyone has been hiding out for the summer. Apparently everyone is trying to save their Schengen days. As we swung past I yelled hello and confirmed that the crew of Bobcat was indeed for the States. My next question was had they been charged to anchor. "Not yet!" .....but he had also just arrived. No time to waste, we got the anchor down and, along with the crew of Bobcat, headed to shore to explore the walled city of Korcula....and dinner out! We departed the next morning after a quick provision run. Apparently, just before the Harbour Master came to collect anchoring charges. Bobcat was not so lucky and was charged 200 kuna ($30).

August 25-Sept 31 Ostinato continued her slow track north, hopping from island to island. Each anchorage finding a free anchorage was an adventure. One night tucked in next to an abandoned military depot, another in front of holiday homes.....just off from the restaurant mooring balls, where we entertained little boys who wanted to show off that they could say "hello Ostinato" in English....over and over and over again.

We arrived in Split a few days before Margaret was due from the UK so it gave us time to get supplies aboard and figure out how we would get to the airport. After a quick tour of Split harbor, where we were informed we could tie up for a mere $200 a night on the quay, we decided to see if there was something a little less shocking to our pocketbooks elsewhere. An anchorage was found on the backside of Split just off the Marina Spinut that provided us great protection (except from the west) for many nights during our time in the area. While they would not allow non member boats to tie up in the marina, our dinghy was welcome. This was much appreciated because I had picked up a cold, apparently in Korcula which, would torment me for the next 2 weeks!

The waterfalls on the Krkar River

Sept 1-8 Poor Margaret arrived to find me barely able to talk and, I fear, not the best of company. Such a good sport. She and King pitched in during the worst of my coughing and sent me to bed when they just couldn't stand looking at my misery any longer. In spite of it, we were still able to get a bit of sailing in, including a trip up the Krkar River all the way to Zlarin anchorage. Here we left Ostinato and boarded a trip boat that took us the final mile up the river to begin our hike to see the Skradin waterfalls. That was the furthest north we would go before it was time to begin our return back to Split in time for Margaret's return flight to London.

I don't think Margaret is ready to give up monohulls
for catamarans yet but she liked the extra space

Split to Skradin Waterfalls on the Krkar River and return

Just off Trogir.
The crew decided it belonged to James Bond's nemisis

Our final days were spent exploring the ancient towns of Trogir and then on to Split. We managed to explore each even though my guide book on Croatia had no page numbers making it only a bit above useless. How does that happen? We finally bit the bullet and decided to go into the Split ACI Marina. High winds were forecast and we didn't have the heart to send Margaret home with a wet butt from the dinghy ride in so King called to see if they had space. Yep....and the charge for Ostinato would be $150 per night (catamaran charge). Yikes! We have no idea why and didn't argue but what a wonderful surprise when we were only charged the monohull rate! We arrived at the docks at 1000, giving us plenty of time to explore Split and have a lovely dinner in town (thank you Margaret). Early the next morning, Margaret caught a taxi to the airport and we began boat chores. 1400 check-out. First on my list was to attack the mountain of laundry that had piled up. Into the wash! hmmmmmm what is that smell? Why are the clothes still wet after the spin dry.....Oh No! Not the washing machine!!!!! King sez it will have to wait until we get to Italy.....we shall see how long he can go without clean clothes!

Radovan's Portal carved in 1240 in Trogir

Split Diocletian's Palace 300 AD

September 9 - Our sail problems have continued. Neither the main or the jib has "laid down" as both the sailmaker and the cloth manufacturer had assured us they would. We have had them looked at by 2 other sailmakers who both said they were not repairable but they would not put it in writing to support a claim saying "they did not want to get involved". King has searched for a surveyor but could find none that knew much about sails so that has been a dead end. I am over it all but "Mr. Ostinato" continues to make inquires so that it be made right ....this morning, we have an appointment with another sailmaker. He comes, we actually have wind to sail, he immediately sees all the issues, plus more! Yes, he will write a letter for us. YEA! .........Now, getting the sails back to Turkey and ourselves to Italy is another issue!

September 10 - Ostinato officially began her trek south. We departed Split early morning arriving late afternoon at Uval Luka on the NW tip of the Peljesadc Peninsula. Its large protected anchorage provided us, along with 7 other boats, a quiet night. From here, we returned to the National Park on Mljet in the Polace anchorage. A little wind and rain was forecast so what better place to lay about for a few days and to plan our route to Sicily. But, the next morning the forecast of little wind had changed to three days of steady 20k winds with gust of 25-30. The direction, of course, was the worst of options. We moved on to the island of Lopud where, should the anchor alarm be a bit slow to decide we were no longer merrily swinging around in one spot, we had a huge bay behind us that we could fly across before hitting anything solid. Fortunately, we enjoyed two quiet nights with the anchor alarm quite as a mouse. It was so quiet, in fact, that we began to doubt the weather forecast so we ventured down the coast a bit further to Zoton, just north of Dubrovnik, where we had spent a night on our way north. The quay was available so King went ashore to find the Harbour Master. Yep, a space was available for a whopping 50 cuna a night ($8) and that included the "cat factor".....or, at least, that's what he heard! Not a second was wasted getting Ostinato tied up....did I mention it was a side-tie! .....and included power and water! Welllll, at least the side-tie was true.

In any case, it did allow a good spot for King to drag everything surrounding the washing machine out into the cockpit and begin the detective work to determine if it had permanently given up the ghost or was simply on a vacation. We were lucky. It appears that it had simply eaten a piece of my underwear which had somehow slipped over the drum in an effort to make their escape. I'm thinking we have just discovered the answer to one of life's great mysteries.......what happens to all of the socks that go into the washing machine but never come out.

September 18 - We arrived back in Cavtac yesterday afternoon, in time to determine how much checking out would cost and then spend all of the remaining cuna in the local grocery store. You can certainly tell its getting toward the end of season. The quay that had been jammed packed with mega yachts on our first visit had a few small sailboats now. The anchorage was close to empty.

The anchor was up at 0830 and we motored around to the check-out quay to complete the Harbor Master, Port Police routine. I had hoped that since our entrance had been a bit of a mess that we would complete the exit with style and grace. It was not to be. As we backed into the quay, the crew of the cat tied up to our starboard side decided they just couldn't wait another second and untied their lines. This, of course, began the circus with lots of yelling and pushing off that resulted in one of their fenders snagging King's newly constructed passarelle thingamagig and bending it. When he complained, the response was "It's not my boat". I'll let you use your imagination for King's response. Seems like our entrance and exit to Croatia will both be memorable occasions.

We are off to Montenegro!