Sailing Croatia
I don’t think that it is a secret at this point that Croatia is one of our favorite places in the world. Tawny and I found ourselves in Croatia back in 2013 for the first time and we instantly fell in love with it. So much so that often when we have the opportunity to go to Europe we always tag on some time in Croatia. This is really the biggest compliment we can pay a place since we almost always elect to use our time and resources to travel somewhere new if we can. Croatia though will always hold our hearts.
Most of you know by now that the “captain” in Captain and Clark is more than just a sweet nickname. I actually hold a license to pilot a sailing vessel in blue water conditions and spent quite a bit of my youth learning the ropes at sea. Perhaps less well known on our blog though is that Croatia is one of the finest places to sail in the world. Tawny and I are always daydreaming about going off to charter a yacht with GlobeSailor and spending some time at sea. I used to peruse the want ads to look at all the opening for captains in Croatia. There are a surprising amount of tourists looking for people to come captain their charter boats and an endless supply of sleek and seaworthy vessels waiting for you to come try your hand at navigating the Mediterranean. A large part of this is that it is a great place to learn how to sail. The waters are calm, the weather is mild, and every island you stop at is laden with the most insane food you can conjure. For anyone who hasn’t been yet, you can think of Croatian food as a fusion of German and Italian with a zealous commitment to the local grower. It’s one of the things that makes sailing the Croatian isles so desirable, each port has a specialty that they are anxious to load up in your galley for the journey to the next coastal oasis.
The islands have wild names like Hvar, Vis, Rab, and maybe our favorite… Pag. Pag was famous for the salt production pools the Romans built there and remained dear to the Croatian people because of the sheep cheese that is produced there. The locals tells us the flavor comes from the sparse coastal grass and amount of salt the sheep eat as they wander the hills above the sea. When Tawny and I first tried it we couldn’t believe how good it was. Pag also produces some of the world’s best lace.
There is no end to the list of reasons why we choose to keep coming back to Croatia. Among the top five though are that it is STUNNING, affordable, the food is phenomenal, the people are both gorgeous and in possession of a well refined sense of humor, and the coast is a smooth line of sapphire that drapes across the shoulders of Croatia. One of our favorite towns is Opatija, a coastal gem that was most famous as a resort town in the 1800s. Tawny and I honeymooned there and spent our every waking moment down on the sea.
For me, I just keep thinking about getting on a flight back to a yacht town like Cavtat and spending a month following the wind wherever it may blow us.
