Croatia

August 2024

We finally made it. It’s been a very long trek to get here. We left St Maarten in May and, after almost 3 months, we can finally really relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Our first stop in Croatia was Dubrovnik to check into the country. We have been researching how to get around the Schengen. There are only a couple countries in the Med that are not Schengen. The Schengen countries allow people to travel between countries without having to stop at border control and go through customs and immigration. It makes it very nice traveling around Europe. There’s only one problem. Visitors from outside the EU can only stay 90 days out of 180. We want to stay for over a year, so we have a problem. Fortunately we have found a work around. By being a “yacht in transit”, we can check out of the Schengen and in to our boat as crew. This means that we cannot stay overnight anywhere but on our boat. Some of the countries are more difficult to work with, so when checking in we must get an agent to smooth out the process and ensure we are not doing anything illegal. It’s been a very painful learning curve. Before making the journey to Croatia, we checked out of Spain. In Croatia we hired an agent, who collected all of our paperwork and took it to port police to get our crew list stamped. So far not too painful.

We are now free to move about the country. We spent a couple days in Dubrovnik and went and checked out old town. What an absolutely breathtaking place. There are no cars in old town as the streets are very narrow and steep, and the restaurants use them for dining. It was the spot where King’s Landing from Game of Thrones was filmed. It was built between the 11th and 17th centuries and is one of the worlds most perfectly preserved medieval cities. Walking through it, I almost felt like I was taken back in time. My minds eye could see the peasants walking up and down the narrow cobblestone streets and the merchants selling handmade goods from their carts. It was truly awe inspiring. Mike and I walked through the old town, up and down the streets, it was like a maze and I’m not even sure we saw it all. The food was amazing. There were so many restaurants, all with seating in the street. It was a wonderful place to take Stella and everywhere was dog friendly.

After leaving Dubrovnik, we headed north to Tisno. This was the reason we came straight to Croatia. Mike had gotten us tickets to a music festival. As luck would have it, we able to anchor the boat in a little bay just outside the venue for the festival. We spent 5 days listening to music, swimming and relaxing. It was fabulous.

And finally, Split, Croatia

After leaving Tisno, we headed south again to the beautiful Split, where we were met by Mike’s family to celebrate his 60th birthday. We had such a wonderful time with them and we are so grateful the made the long trip here to celebrate a milestone with me and Mike.

Our first adventure was a speedboat tour of five of the surrounding island and all the splendor they have to offer. First stop, blue cave. Unfortunately Mike had the phone so there is only one picture 🤷‍♀️

This was the highlight of the trip. But we did go to some of the other islands where we visited a fishing villiage and had a delicious breakfast. We passed by many caves in the sides of the islands that were very cool, before heading to blue lagoon, where we rested and swam for awhile and had a few drinks.

Last stop was Hvar city on the island of Hvar. It was a very nice place, but very expensive. Definitely a tourist trap. We had a great time, nonetheless.

We visited Diocletian’s Palace in split. What a treat that was. It’s amazing how old it is and it’s mostly intact. They are doing restorations on it, but it was an amazing place to visit.