Kastela, Split

So that’s it!  All done.  All over.  And we’re here in Marina Kastela, on the outskirts of Split.  The boat’s been brilliant, the crew have been….er…. oh, OK then…brilliant, and the skipper…well, what can I say!

But let’s catch up a bit first.

We left Luka on Wednesday and had a pleasant three-hour trip to Milna on the west coast of Brac. On the way we passed a famous quarry.  Quarry?  ‘Can’t be many famous quarries in the world!  This one provided the stone to build the White House in Washington DC.  I don’t know when it was built, but the thought of shipping tonnes of stone, probably by sailing ship, all the way to the US is pretty weird. Who’s idea was that?  ‘Probably the worlds first interior designer!  (apart from the guy that designed Stone Henge, obviously.  That stone came from Wales!)

Milna is a little town up a long inlet and it’s beautiful, but unfortunately…er…just a bit smelly.  In fact, it’s quite a lot smelly!  We had to shut the windows at night and run the air conditioning.  That is, until the guy on the next boat complained about the noise.  So it was windows open, smell in, and sleep out – of the question!

In the morning we left fairly early (we needed some sea air) and headed for Kastela, arriving at lunchtime.  We had to wait awhile before we could come in and eventually they put us on someone else’s berth (a friend of mine’s, Ian Penman, who has another Trader  64).  Actually, Ian’s the main reason we are here, but his boat’s in the yard at the moment for a minor repair so we’ve nicked his berth!  I booked a berth back in April and have emailed them twice to make sure it was confirmed.  We still seemed to take them by surprise though.  What is strange about this is that the marina looks pretty deserted to me!

Kastela is not the prettiest marina but it’s new, it’s big and it has great facilities.  It’s a good place to leave the boat for a couple of months.  Then, in October, we’ll make the journey back to Tivat, Montenegro (we like it there!), for the winter.

So, bye-bye everyone.  I’ve enjoyed writing this and really didn’t think I’d keep it up.  But I did, and I’m pleased I did.  Incidentally, the blog has had over 5000 hits now, so there’s either some bloke somewhere totally obsessed with it or a few other people have been keeping up with our exploits.

My sincere thanks to you all!  But special thanks must go to Mr. Vaughan, who’s fixed just about anything and everything that needed fixing.  Anchor motors, gearboxes, catches, poo-pumps, sat navs, stuck doors, broken seat backs, outboards, jammed cleats, and loads more!  And he makes the best gin & tonics this side of Cyprus!  Thanks Mart.

Martin