Curious about the title? I'll guess the prefix add some spice to the text, but I'll start with the perhaps not so exciting "happiness" part of the story and end oup with the juicy ones...
We've had some really lovely hot days on our own in the Kornati archipelago during the weekend, adding on the to the good mood we already were in when we enjoyed the company of Janice and Geoff some days before.
While they were visiting us we encountered suprisingly few other sailing boats out. We even had the bad luck of experiencing not yet opened restaurants. But we expected that the last week probably was the week before the high season really started. And we were right. So we went away on Friday afternoon and got half way to Kornati. After trying to find available mooring bouyes on a couple of coves without any success, we finally got the next to last berth in a small marina on the island of Iz. The last resort. We don't like marinas for two reasons, they are very expensive and often a bit boring. Even if this was a small one, it was no exception. It was a bit boring, i.e. no pictures, but at least not so terrible expensive.
We headed away early the morning after towards Kornati, or rather north of it ending up in a cove, Mir, in the Nature Park Telascica. Everything sounded promising. The cove was suppose to have a few restaurants, up the hill there was a Salty Lake to which several tour operators in Zadar were offering excursion trips and finally there was a minor variant of "the White Cliffs of Dover".
The Salty Lake was probably very salty, it didn't have clear water anyway and the shores were muddy. A big disappointment actually. On top of that the only restaurant open was really not cosy. But the minor Dover was ok, and the water temperature in the cove was comfortably 22.5 C. Actually a couple of degrees warmer now than when we were in this area with Janice and Geoff some days earlier.
After a swim we decided to go a few miles further in this big Telascica bay, hoping to find a restaurant somewhere. We did, but there was not water depth enough so we were lucky to find a rather remote (2 km) and still available bouye in a nearby cove. The last available bouy! With a filled up tank in the little dinge 2,5 hp outborder we soon went away over the bay to the supposed restaurant at the shallow waters. Bingo, there it was. A really nice fish restaurant (all of them are very "plain", but expenisve, out here). And this is how pleased Sally was after that meal.
On the Sunday we sailed southwards into Kornati. We noticed a remarkably increase in the number of boats compared with how it was here 3-4 dayes before. Kornati is really a beautiful sailing area with theses strange and softly shaped islands with hardly any vegetation. Here are some more Kornati pictures:
Eventually we ended up in the busy cove of Lavsa in the south part of Kornati. Got the last bouy again :-). And this was already at 3 pm. The water temperature was now up to 25,3 C, top notation so far!
Cold lunch onboard and dinner at the cosy restaurant in the background of the picture. Again nice fresh grilled fish in a very plain dish at an outrageous price. On top of that we had to pay 400 kn (40£ or 50 €) just for a 24h staying in the Kornati National Park, a fee we luckaly had managed to avoid all the other days we stayed there...
I guess this was the start of a seroius of bad incidents that followed.
The morning after we decided to leave Kornati, heading for somewhere near Sibenik. The weather fantastic again, full sun, 35 C in the air, 25 C in the water. The sea in Croatia is furthermore wellknown for the easy navigation, there are hardly any grounds anywhere. Which is true. However in Kornati we had seen a few and carefully avoided them. Now heading for Sibenik area we had the wind completely from behind. So I decided to let the main sail completely out to port, and the head sail completely out to starboard. This set up gives maximum speed, unless you hoist the gennaker, which we didn't. The set up is a bit tricky though, you have to steer very carefully in order to avoid an accidential gybe which can be dangereous. I managed to do that and we reached 4 knots in the rather weak winds.
Concentrating to the steering, I neglected to look at the electronic chart. Somewhere in the middle of the sea I suddenly detected a white bottom! How is this possible on 60 meters depth? The depth meter displayed 3,5 meter and rapidly decreasing...the boat draft is 2,1 meter. One second later, before I had the time to decide on which side to turn, we hit the ground heavily. The boat jumped up a couple of decimeters under a terrible sound. I can assure it is a shocking moment, something like an intensive earthquake on board - it sounds like the whole boat is ripped apart. Evertyhing loose inside jumps out of their shelves. For a moment we are stuck, leaning with full sails up pressing us further into the ground. Full back on the engine, but the sails push the other way...Take down the sails! Almost panic onboard. Not easy to take them down quickly and with the wind pressing on from the wrong side, almost impossible. For a moment the boat turns to starboard for some reason and get loose from the ground and I quickly switch to forward gear. Depth meter shows 2 - 1,9 - 2.1 - 2.2 - 3 meters and we're out of it! (the depth meter displayes some decimeters lower than reallity)
Well away from the ground I run down to the saloon and lift nerveously on the saloon floor boards. Shit, the newly repaired keel beam is cracked again! Damned! How could I be so unobservant? Anyway, there seems to be no water intake and we're not hurt nor in a life threatening situatino.
Furhter investigations later on shows that the crack seems restricted in its extent. After anchoring in a cove an hour later I dived down to inspect the underwater damage. Obviously a dent on the keel bottom, but not as big as I feared. No cracks at all between the hull and the keel. And what I have seen so far no cracks in any other beam inside but the rear keel beam. Hopefully the damage is less extensive than the previous one that I discovered before I bought the boat one year ago. And back then we sailed 4 weeks with the crack. Tomorrow morning I have asked people here at the Tribunj Marina to examine the damage further and I therefore have to dismount some more floor boards for beams examination.
The disaster day was not finished yet, however. When mooring in the Marina we had a hard side wind, and it was messy with the boat drifting into other boats and their anchor lines. After some intensive moments running forth and back pushing on to other boats, Sally happened to put her foot into one of the opened saloon side windows. She gets some rather nasty long scratches on her leg, bleeding. But stoppable. And she manages to stop most of the swelling. She'll get some big blue bruises tomorrow. Lucky though she didn't break the leg! Pictures will follow tomorrow.
On top of this the marina guys manage to place i mooring rope in my still rotating propeller...they have promised to send for a diver to fix it tomorrow morning.
On the other hand, Tribunj showed up a lovely evening and we got ourselves a really nice meal at the restaurant at the marina!
WOW! What an exciting post, perhaps Sten-Olof should try writing a book? :) Sounds extremely scary - yet how lucky you were to get away with just minor damage! Beautiful pictures of the islands, can't wait!
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