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Date - June 20th Written by - Susan Current Location - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Tomorrow we are headed on a 8 hour bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia and then an overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria and then another train to Greece and hopefully after 48 hours of traveling we will be in Greece. ___________________________________________________________________________ There are two types of people in this world. Those who look at want ads and wonder what would happen if they actually answered the ad and those who actually do. We usually fall into the first category, but serendipity somehow had us choose the latter. It all started with our usual visit to the local city information office to get our free city map. As Brian was doing due diligence talking to the information people, I was checking out all the signs posted on the community board. One jumped out at me. SAILING it said in nice bubble letters. It sounded very intriguing especially since we were in a place with over 1200 islands. So we took the little slip attached with the email address on it. Although we didn't really seriously think that there was any chance we would actually go sailing, we thought what the heck, might as well email the 30-something couple from New Zealand who were looking for a few couples to share the cost of renting a 40ft sailboat for 4 days. It sounded nice and we were doing a little wishful thinking. We ended up meeting up with the couple, Chris and Autumn for coffee in the old town of Dubrovnik. I must say that back at home, it would seem a bit bazaar to answer a handwritten ad posted in an information center and then meet up for coffee with them the next day, but when traveling it seems perfectly normal. We had a great time and learned a great deal about the America's cup (the reason Chris and Autumn were in Europe). They had a 2-week break from the action and decided to head over to Croatia. At coffee they told us that they had also met another Australian couple that would also be interested in sharing the costs and we were all to meet and grab gelato at this place where there's this Croatian guy with a perfect Australian accent that serves gelato. It kinds of throws you off guard when you hear a Croatian say G'day mate! Regardless of whether we were actually going to go sailing, the idea of gelato on a 90 degree day was very appealing. Brian and I talked about whether we would go if we liked the boat, but really were we kidding ourselves? How can you not like a 40 foot sailboat (yacht as New Zealanders call it) with your own cabin. Let's see....sailing around turquoise blue water, being able to jump into the water any time we wanted, eating good food, drinking some beers..............you would have to be dumber than a rock not to jump at the opportunity.....although there are times when we have said things that would be categorized under the dumber than a rock category. So of course the next day when we show up at the marina and take a look at the boat it was definitely a yes from both us and the Australian couple, Luke and Madelaine. Neither Brian, Luke, Madelaine, nor I had ever been sailing before. So Chris was being really brave taking 4 newbies out into the water. We stocked up on groceries at the local supermarket near the marina and headed out in the late morning. This is pretty much how the 4 days went. - Wake up, swim, eat breakfast, sail, lay in sun, swim, snorkel, lay in sun, drink beer, eat lunch, swim, lay in sun, sail, drink beer, lay in sun, eat dinner, swim, drink. one time we even made the effort and stopped for gelato. I know this sounds pretty lame and I am pretty sure no one is feeling a bit sorry for us at this point, but we were actually kind of tired by the end of the day. All that beer and sun makes for some pretty lazy people. We did actually experience some other cool highlights..... 1. Chris taught us the basic of sailing including letting us help with pulling up the sails and moving them around according to the wind (which we only really got on the second day of sailing). Sailing on the second day was just an incredible experience. I even got to steer the boat for a bit which is a bit unnerving since moving the steering wheel only an inch seems to pitch the boat even further on its side. Although there was never any danger of it actually falling on its side when its tipped at a 45 degree angle it sure feels like its about to fall over. Sailing is definitely an art. 2. There is just nothing like jumping into the warm Adriatic Sea when its scorching hot outside and the water is a cool blue. The water is so clear that many times we could see the bottom which was a good 30 feet. There was snorkeling gear onboard so we were also able to snorkel around in different coves. There was tons of tiny little fish as well as sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and lovely old beer cans laying around. We had also bought these cheap floaty rafts at the grocery store so we just laid around on those too. 3. Seeing dolphins. I had never seen dolphins - except of course at SeaWorld - so it was kind of cool to see them swimming in the wild. One time we saw about 7 or 8 of them and Chris decided to kill the engine on the sailboat, grab some snorkel gear and jump into the water to try to swim with them. Brian, Madelaine, and I were not far behind. Although they were not that interested in playing that time, it was definitely fun to jump in and try to swim with them. Brian did freak me out a bit though by telling me that wherever dolphins are, sharks are also around. That's how nice Brian is sometimes. haha! Later on though we did see more dolphins and this time they did want to play and swam right along side our boat for a while. So that was really fun to peer over the front of the sail boat and see them right below us. 4. The last time we anchored before having to bring the boat back to the Marina we were trying to figure out what to do with our little floaty rafts. It seemed like such a waste to just throw them away since they were perfectly good. I saw a little boy swimming hear this bulkhead area near the beach and said we should give him one of the rafts. So I swam the little raft over to him and he was so grateful and excited for the raft. That itself was enough to make us all smile for the rest of the day. Then 10 minutes later, we see him swimming up to the boat and he had gotten me a beautiful purple sea urchin shell as a thank you. That is just one of the may reasons why Croatians are some of the friendliest and most hospitable people we have met so far on our trip. They always seem to go the extra mile and always with a smile. That definitely made my day. 5. Last but definitely not least was the company. It is always a huge risk when you hang out with random people you do not know, but to spend 4 days with complete strangers? at sea? We would typically call people like that crazy!! It is actually a huge leap of faith in many ways. Luckily, we all got along splendidly and had heaps of fun as they say. Everybody was incredibly interesting, laid back, and so generous in giving us tips, offering up information and contacts when we get to Australia and New Zealand. We honestly could not have asked for a better crew.  Be first to comment this article |  Add as favourites (65) | Views: 182
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Croatia 