With just Dee and I on board now we decided against another overnighter, opting to get into Pula after dark, where we knew the lay of the land and could anchor up easily. Or that’s what we thought.
It was a pretty uneventful sail/motor back from Venice after an 8 o’clock start, having hung around for the marina guy to show up to help us out of our tight slip.
We got to Pula on dusk and got treated to the light show on the cranes as we came in. We pulled up to the customs dock and checked in quickly and easily. Then we anchored off to the side of the jetty and went to sleep.
We woke to a knocking on the hull as the port guy told us we had to move quickly as a cruise ship was coming and we needed to give him more space. Okay, maybe anchoring wasn’t quite as straight forward as we thought.
We didn’t stay re-anchored long as we needed to move into the marina to get our newly repaired wind instrument refitted. The guys had done a good job of refurbishing our badly corroded wind instrument but couldn’t manage to thread the new cable through the mast so they could wire it all up. All they did was manage to pull the old cable out – without the new one attached. Lagoon had left a mouse line in the mast but the top of this had come loose meaning that was no use either. There was much talk of having to drop the mast, before I called a halt to proceeding after having talked to the Croatian Lagoon agent who suggested we sail down to Murter to have things attended to.
So early next morning we headed south. Murter was a bit far in one day so we stopped off in nice bay called Baratol on the island of Pasman, before getting up early to beat the final 15nm into Marina Bertina on the island of Murter, where the Raymarine guys who were recommended hung out.
We got there just in time as we had 40kt winds for the next few days. The guys managed to get up the mast and get things sorted, finishing late into the evening before the winds got too bad. It was still a bitch of a job, as inside of the mast is a bit tight in places but they managed to get the mouseline, firstly down to where the halyards exit the mast and finally down to a rather crowded exit point where all the other electrical cables exit.
In fact Murter is a bit of a find, being one of those places in Croatia where you find really good technicians. Talked to a lot of satisfied customers in the marina who had various things fixed over the years.
Murter is also connected to the mainland via a traffic bridge making it a good island to leave the boat for a bit of exploring by car.
But no time for that in our quest to get around to Sicily, before picking up Claire and Kane in Sorrento in a few weeks time. With the wind gone and the wind instrument reporting the fact, it was time to head for Vis, our final destination in Croatia.
A Little Bit of Mischief 