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| We loved Sveti Ivan, our home for 7 days |
Our story of Sveti Ivan began in December 2019, when we
decided to charter a sailboat in Croatia with good friends. With Mike as our Captain,
we’d sail the Adriatic and enjoy the islands in the beautiful blue sea. Like
everyone Covid changed, well, pretty much everything, so we switched gears to
September 2021 since our credit would expire in December. Over time, our shipmates
also changed, so our floating home neighbors who also sail agreed to share the
adventure.
When selecting a 7-day charter boat for four, we
perused the vast array of sailing vessels against our specific criteria (good
sailing monohull, 2 heads, 2 staterooms, nice galley). We all decided on Sveti
Ivan, a 38’ French-designed Dufour, because really - who wouldn't want to
charter a boat named Sveti Ivan! My dreams filled with images of a sweaty guy named
Ivan who sailed the seas before us, images of an “arrgggh matey” kind of sailor,
salt of the earth, Popeye. I was enchanted and ready to be part of that scene.
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Bought a gift from a street
vendor and he said 'the
tradition in Croatia is you
get a free magnet with
every purchase' :-) So this
one, inadvertently perhaps,
reflected my vision of Sveti Ivan. |
As we toured castles, fortresses and churches in Split and
Sibenik before our charter trip, we learned when visiting a church that Sveti
Ivan actually translates to St. John. Imagine our surprise and belly laughs
when we learned that. Oh, how important translations can be. The humor wasn’t lost on us,
we had a special vessel after all.
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Blago, our fantastic taxi driver, advocate and
teller of secret tales for navigating his beloved
country of Croatia. He turned us on to his
favorite Cevapi place, 'Gyros Grill'. We called
Blago anytime we needed a ride in Split.
 | Cevapi with grilled pita, ajvar (roasted red pepper
relish), soft creamy cheese and onion, local beer |
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At the Michelin restaurant before we ate
like Kings and Queens - and paid handsomely |
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Typical local transport on cobblestone
streets, not wide enough for cars.
Looked like fun to drive. They are
heavily fined if they hit a pedestrian. |
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| Collision course in the busy port of Split |
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Cool architecture everywhere, reflecting classical
design from hundreds of centuries. |
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Castles & fortresses built almost 2,000
years ago. Glad we did English tour to
learn some of the rich regional history |
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Babic (pronounced
babeech)-a local red
from Dalmatian region
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We took a ton of photos so I am posting them by groups below:
- Food & beverage
- Sailing adventures on the Adriatic
- Architecture and history
- Helsinki, Finland - our flights routed us there for a night/day on our return trip (arrived 3am departed 4pm
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Wine tasting in Jelsa, Hvar - 4 olive oils
& 9 wines: 3 white, 3 orange, 2 red & dessert wine |
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Fish & Chips! The main course of my
Michelin restaurant dinner at Pelegrini |
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| I'd never seen an egg dispensing machine |
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Fresh picked grapes delivered from our host in Jelsa,
island of Hvar; local delicacies - dined on our patio |
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Dancing scampi artfully presented;
seriously messy dinner! |
FOOD & BEVERAGE
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| Rum & Coke with lime essence balls |
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Branimir explains my peach flan: "with the
skin of the peach, the fruit of the peach,
the juice of the peach and the cream of the peach" |
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| Jelsa pizza with egg. Tastier than you'd imagine |
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Aperol Spritz & Hugo
(elderflower syrup, mint,
lime, prosecco & sparkling
water) - quite refreshing |
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| Amazing appetizers, 1 bite carefully prepared |
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Afternoon chilling on the waterfront
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I don't often take photos of my meals but there were two words that I "abused" when it came to food during our travels - amazing and ridiculous! So many flavors, fresh foods, local wines, olives, cheese, sausage. Of course, a vast array of familiar and new veggies and fruits abound in this Mediterranean
climate.
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One of many tasty local beers
pics made it easier to order again |
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| Happy guy shopping for Cuban cigars |
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Enjoying a puff after our extravagant Michelin meal |
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| On the ferry to the mainland with bags of grapes for the crush |
SAILING - we chartered for 7 days heading out from Sibenik to the myriad of islands in the area. We were one of 60 boats departing from NCP Charters on that day. One employee told us Croatia claims 30% of all charter boats in the world. Not sure if that's true but certainly popular even in that late September week.
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So many choices for our week long charter - some islands had villages,
historic buildings, sheep, national parks or nothing; all had grapes and
olive trees marked with carefully constructed short stone walls that
designate each family's plot of land where they grow their grapes and olives. |
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| Shipmates, soulmates - Corinn & Marco at the helm |
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| Evening vista at Prvic |
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Marco brought his guitar, Corinn her
mandolin so we had great music |
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| Full moon at Kaprije |
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| Happy sailor - the bluest waters! |
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Our gangplank for accessing shore
at the dock |
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| Marco at the helm |
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| We celebrated our 14th anniversary |
ARCHITECTURE & HISTORY
This section also includes other cool photos I took that tell some of the local story.
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| Excellent message: Believe in yourself |
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Grilled veggies & meats
from the old brick oven |
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| Cool sunset photo - the Riva (promenade) in Split |
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How much you pay? for standing
with the guards. Too much. |
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View from our patio in Jelsa; swimming beach at the
bottom of the hill |
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| View from the Fortress |
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| Kamerlengo Fortress, Split |
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| Old beams donned the ceiling - restaurant in Trogir |
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| Stone wall in Stari Grad |
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| An angel swing in Jelsa |
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| Our ferry to the island of Hvar |
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| Bridge leading to old town, Trogir |
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| Typical vista with red roofs & church |
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Underground recently discovered
in Split - under the castle |
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One of my favorite photos - vista point Split;
Mike looking at the area map |
HELSINKI, FINLAND - well, actually we spent the day in Vantaa, a suburb of Helsinki that's close to the airport. With our arriving at 3AM, I picked a hotel near the airport as we departed at 4PM that same day. Our late/early arrival in the dark of night found us delivered by our Iraqi taxi driver to a dark industrial complex with no hotel sign, but there was a neon sign (which of course we couldn't read anyway). So our guy wouldn't let us out until we got close to the large building and saw a tiny red sign HOTEL TIKKURILA. He waited while we put in our access code. Got his card for our return trip since we were so far out from anything, he would at least know where he dropped us off. We slept 4 hours in twin beds and awoke to the sound of thunder. I couldn't help but think of Bob Seeger's Night Moves song: I woke up to the sound of thunder, how far off and I sat and wondered. Well, we found out as we wove through the maze of halls up to the main level - we were staying at the Bowling Alley! What a hoot! Yep, bowling alley, sports complex and small hotel. And to our amazement, the Finnish bowling tournament was going on with cameras, matching bowling shirts, overhead displays and a busy place at 9 in the morning. They were down to the last 3 finalists, we learned from Tapio, our host.
Tapio said all museums close by were closed so he offered a map (useless since we don't know Finnish and he said it wasn't accurate anyway). He showed how we might find the river so we walked on a crisp fall day along a boulevard that led us to the open air market! What a find. All the people were happy, chatting and enjoying the sunshine and warmth that they knew would end one day soon.
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| Bear Market |
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| The bowling alley in action |
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| Get your Mexican goodies |
No fear of learning Finnish any time soon. That's a lot of vowels.
The market was filled with easily one hundred booths: food, farm fresh goods, bakeries, mittens, mukluks, bear skins, wool and things to keep you warm for the Helsinki winter. We walked further, found the river, the closed geology museum and a place for lunch before we headed back for our departure to Chicago - where we would spent another 24 hours en route to Portland.
Made our getting the Covid test challenging as the tests are only valid for 72 hours and it took us 3 days to get back from Split to Portland. Thankfully, reliable taxi friend Blago took us to the mobile testing clinic at the Split airport. Done deal!
