Arrivederci Italy. Zdravo Hvratska

A surprising and pleasant few days in Puglia had to end as a good weather window to cross the adriatic from Brindisi offered itself. We enjoyed the hospitality of Marina di brindisi and the efforts of their concierge Greta, to make our stay easy and the exit even more so. She was able to arrange for the Carbineri to come to the boat the day before to clear us out of Italy. Great service!

The crossing started with a PAN called received asking for all boats in the area to be on the lookout for a diver who had gone missing off the coast nearby. We were perplexed by a weird middle of the night encounter with a very large trawler and support boats crossing our path with strange lights darting around the area which we later opined were a number of drones whose purpose remain a mystery. The weather forecast was good and a good moon helped us dodge north south traffic,the morning revealed a very pretty land ho. Morning also revealed two or three water spouts about 5nm behind us which we are very thankful we didn’t pass through in the dark.

Countries enjoy varying reputations for their customs, immigration and coast guard treatment of cruisers and Croatia has a fairly poor one. It has some perverse rules which they apply with gusto and reap considerable fines. The reputation deters cruisers from visiting or revisiting with some justification in my opinion given the experiences we have heard of first hand. It such a missed opportunity for the country, although that said they lack the boating infrastructure and local enthusiasm to coap with greater numbers anyway.

With conflicting advices and up and down and up stairs again and ducking the ferry queue of new arrivals we eventually cleared into Croatia and headed to luxurious Marina Frapa in the main port to catch up on some sleep before exploring Dubrovnik’s delights.