Posts Tagged ‘wind’

Sailing in Croatia

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

I got back from Croatia over a month ago just haven’t gotten around to completing this post until now :)

Me, Stacy and 2 other couples we know went to Croatia the 15th of August, and stayed there for a week.

We rented a Bavaria 36 sailboat that we lived on and used to sail around the Adriatic coast.

day 1

We started in Trogir, and after a pretty long and boring checkout from Ecos Yachting, / Nautilus Yachting,  we where on the way at around 17-18 o’clock. We had 2-3 hours of sun and made it to outside  maslinca before night came. Luckily we decided to not stop there, but sail straight for the island of Vis. There was actually a full moon when we started, but during our 7-8 hour trip there was actually a lunar eclipse :)


And while in the middle of the ocean in them middle between Maslinca and Vis, we saw the most spectacular clear sky with thousands of stars incredibly bright. None of us had ever seen the stars so clear and bright before, and it was quite the sight :)

We arrived sometime after midnight, and anchored up in a cove, right outside the small town of Komiza.

day 2
We started pretty early and headed out to the island of Bisevo, which is around 1 hour away from where we spent the night. There we anchored up outside ‘the blue cave’ where we all went inside with the dinghy to see the cave light up with blue light, reflected from the bottom of the cave trough a submarine opening in the mountain.


We then sailed to Vela Luca, where we anchored up inside the harbor, and went into town in the dinghy (special thanks to our dinghy-pilot Andreas) :)

While in Vela Luca the dingy once ran out of fuel, and once got a plastic bag stuck in the propeller, and waves made sure nobody got ashore dry :D

day 3
We started out pretty late (which in retrospect we should not have done), and set sail for Hvar..
“The sea was angry that day”, 24 m/s wind, and some waves. This of course led to the dingy tearing away (damn you, cheap Croatian rope!!). Anyway, we got a hold of it after a while and could sail onwards to Hvar.

When we got to Hvar the damn harbor was filled up, so we had to anchor up somewhere. We tried one place but had to move to a better place, it was extremely dark, so judging distance was really hard.
Also the navigation lights where out (the light bulb was toast, as water seemed to have found it’s way into the lamp), but we finally found a place to anchor up.

Seeing that we’re in a 150’000$ boat and sharp rocks where around 50 meters away. We found it best to play safe and have someone on guard in the night. I remember being a bit tired, playing Mahjong on the Nintendo DS and bats where flying around the boat… (It turns out they were actually swallows, but they sounded like bats! I should have asked about their unladen airspeed velocity)

day 4

We went into the ACI marina outside Hvar pretty early, We did some bathing on a exceptional clear beach on the same island, and got some snorkeling done. We took the taxiboat in to Hvar town and I have absolutely no recollection of what we did there. I do remember that a bunch of noisy swedes had a hell of a party in the marina that night.

day 5

We went to Split, and having learned from previous mistakes we hit the harbor pretty early and got a nice spot. We went bathing and then went into Split for some shopping.

day 6
We sailed from Split and went back to Trogir where we started the trip.

day 7

We sailed out from trogir and anchored up, on the northern shore about 30 minutes out from Trogir. Here we did lots of bathing, played miniature golf (I won :D ) drove water jets and a banana boat (warning climbing up on a banana boat after you’ve been swimming alot and got tired arms sucks).

We then filled up the boat with disel, went back to the harbour for checkout. And took a cab to the airport for the flight back to Trondheim.

Sailing in Asker

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

Last weekend I was in Asker, and got my Sailing Certificate, during a 4 day sailing trip around the Oslo fjord.
Asker kart seiling

Thursday
I took the airplane to Oslo today, 12:00 so I did not have to get up so goddamn early. After taking the airport train all the way to asker, I had to wait there for 4-5 hours until the course actually started.

Once started they went over basic navigation, and when dusk hit we started sailing from Asker down to Soon, navigating by lighthouses. We arrived in Son around 02:00-03:00  and went straight to sleep.

Friday
We woke ut at 08:00 And  had some more theory, following sailing from Son downwards to Engelsvik. Not much wind today, so several time we had to use the engine.
Seiling Asker 2

Saturday
Very favorable wind today, 10-12 m/s.. We sailed out to the exit of the Oslo fjord, then turned and sailed downwind past Tønsberg, and a bit up the Drammen fjord to Holmsbu where we stayed the night.

Top speed was at around 8.2 knots
Seiling Asker 3

Sunday
We sailed back to Asker today, pretty good wind conditions, and we arrived on schedule. Took the plane back to Trondheim and arrived back home at around 00:30
Seiling Asker 1