Thursday 21 September 2017 – Venisce (mainland Croatia)

Yesterday the lady in the Marina reception suggested that the weather today might not be suitable for us to leave.  But we woke up to sun for the first time in days and the forecast looked good.  We hadn’t planned to go far.  Richard identified an anchorage on the mainland which is only 14 miles away and is free!

So we set off.  The plan was to stop at the fuel quay and fill up on diesel.  We are down to half a tank, which isn’t a problem in itself, but I worry where we will find suitable supplies on the way.  However, when we got there a superyacht was taking up the whole of the quay and said they would be there for another half an hour.  So we gave up and left.

As we left the harbour it seemed like there was sufficient wind to sail and not on the nose!  So we put up the both sails and shut off the engine.  It all started comfortably enough.  The sea was very flat and comfortable.  The wind was blowing a force 4 from 60 degrees off to a beam reach.  But these winds are very fluky.  We would be going along nicely when suddenly for no reason the wind would start to gust at 20-25 knots and then from a different direction.  When this started we took in a reef, but still there were times we were heeling a lot (not my favourite position).  But Richard had a great time and we actually sailed the whole way.  It got a little hairy when we were coming up to the entrance to this creek/bay.  But we got the sails down without trouble and found ourselves in a nice comfortable anchorage with about 7-8 other boats.

The wind continued to blow fairly hard (about force 4-5) even here in the protected bay.  But the books say there is good holding here and certainly we saw one person’s anchor come up filled with mud!  We seem to be nice and steady.  Only one problem.  Our wonderful new toy, the radio controlled chain counter which tells us how much chain we put down has stopped working.  But I still have the markers on the chain, so I know what I put down.


This would have been a really nice place to swim, but it has been too cold.  The water temperature is only 20C!   So we just relaxed in the saloon all afternoon.

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