Sveti Ivan and Other Tales of Croatia

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. 

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.

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

At the Michelin restaurant before we ate
like Kings and Queens - and paid handsomely

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.

Collision course in the busy port of Split

Cool architecture everywhere, reflecting classical
design from hundreds of centuries. 

Castles & fortresses built almost 2,000
years ago. Glad we did English tour to
learn some of the rich regional history

Babic (pronounced
babeech)-a local red
from Dalmatian region

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

Wine tasting in Jelsa, Hvar - 4 olive oils
& 9 wines: 3 white, 3 orange, 2 red & dessert wine

Fish & Chips! The main course of my
Michelin restaurant dinner at Pelegrini

I'd never seen an egg dispensing machine

Fresh picked grapes delivered from our host in Jelsa,
island of Hvar; local delicacies - dined on our patio

Dancing scampi artfully presented;
seriously messy dinner!

FOOD & BEVERAGE

Rum & Coke with lime essence balls

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" 

Jelsa pizza with egg. Tastier than you'd imagine

Aperol Spritz & Hugo
(elderflower syrup, mint,
lime, prosecco & sparkling
water) - quite refreshing

Amazing appetizers, 1 bite carefully prepared

Afternoon chilling on the waterfront

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.

One of many tasty local beers
pics made it easier to order again

Happy guy shopping for Cuban cigars

Enjoying a puff after our extravagant Michelin meal

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.

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.

Shipmates, soulmates - Corinn & Marco at the helm

Evening vista at Prvic

Marco brought his guitar, Corinn her
mandolin so we had great music

Full moon at Kaprije

Happy sailor - the bluest waters!

Our gangplank for accessing shore
at the dock

Marco at the helm

We celebrated our 14th anniversary

ARCHITECTURE & HISTORY

This section also includes other cool photos I took that tell some of the local story.

Excellent message: Believe in yourself

Grilled veggies & meats 
from the old brick oven

Cool sunset photo - the Riva (promenade) in Split

How much you pay? for standing
with the guards. Too much.

View from our patio in Jelsa; swimming beach at the 
bottom of the hill

View from the Fortress

Kamerlengo Fortress, Split

Old beams donned the ceiling - restaurant in Trogir

Stone wall in Stari Grad

An angel swing in Jelsa

Our ferry to the island of Hvar

Bridge leading to old town, Trogir

Typical vista with red roofs & church

Underground recently discovered 
in Split - under the castle

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. 

Bear Market

The bowling alley in action

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!