We pulled up anchor from F#$k W@t B^y and headed around the top of Hvar Island towards Brac. It was another 25nm sail to Bol on the south coast of Brac, which is separated by a narrow channel from Hvar.
As we sailed down the channel between the two islands, we marvelled at the farms that went steeply up narrow near vertical valleys. Brac is the most mountainous of the islands, with its beautiful white stone used all over Croatia, Europe and even the white house in Washington, DC.
About half way up the island we pulled the sails down and anchored off the world famous beach at Dugi Rat. Unfortunately the wind came up about the same time so we didn’t stop – we pulled up anchor pretty well straight away and headed to Bol, just around the corner.
Bol is renowned for being pretty blowy, so we opted to moor stern to on the town wall. We did a pretty good job of parking next to a big power boat, on only our second med mooring attempt, the first being Gibraltar.
Our berth was right on the restaurant strip at what we discovered was a very pretty little town. 10m away was a very nice little pizza joint and that’s where we headed first. After lunch we discovered the picturesque tree-lined walkway that took us down to Dugi Rat, some 2kms away, the start of which was lined with stalls selling the famous Brac stoneware.
Next day, the weather forecast was perfect for a day at the beach, so off we went in our best bikinis to check out the famous beach. The Dugi Rat beach is a triangle of beach that juts out into the sea, looking across to Hvar island at the other side of the strait. As you walk along the cliffs to get there, you look down to a simply stunning scene, with clear translucent water surrounding an umbrella covered, pebbled point.
We lashed out and purchased four lounge chairs, metres from the sea for the day at 50 kunas each and swam and lounged around until after lunch. The beach bar sold Coronas so we had a beer each under a beautiful sunny sky. I’m glad we didn’t come in the height of summer as I’m sure this beach would have been packed to the rafters. As it was, people have different ideas of personal space in this part of the world and we had people park themselves on the beach just right in front of us.
That night we visited Bol’s trendiest cocktail bar (about 50m down the broad-walk from La Mischief) and enjoyed some sought of town festival, with stalls selling local cooking and townsfolk dressing up in some traditional garb. As we listened to live folk music, we sipped on our cocktails and ate the local food. I’ve been hooked on Mojitos ever since Kevin and Di fed them to me in Gibraltar and in Bol, I was introduced to Royal Mojitos – something we were most impressed with – it was like a Mojito but with champagne and aged rum. Yummy!
We were enjoying Bol so much that we stayed an extra day and walked up to the monastery, which is in the opposite direction to Dugi Rat. The wind had come back up so our thinking was that we would have a swim here rather than at Dugi Rat.
That afternoon we ran into some fellow Aussies in James and Gaila, together with their friend Claire, on their yacht Mercier moored around the corner from us, and invited them over for drinks and pizza. We convinced the pizza restaurant to deliver the pizzas to La Mischief and Marinko obliged, together with cutlery and white napkins.
Declaring the home delivery of pizzas a success, we then asked if Marinko did cocktails. His restaurant didn’t but he simply went a couple of doors up and got them from there. Marinko, with a lovely smile, expertly delivered 7 cocktails on a tray over the gang-plank, made our night.
An excellent way to end of stay in what was a very picturesque little place.
For pictures of Bol and Dugi Rat see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200309810860816.1073741871.1620379103&type=1&l=a8956275e5
A Little Bit of Mischief 