Dec 3 2011
However A Whole New Croatia Awaits To The North And This New Rally Exposes The Wonderful Highlights Of This Part Of Dalmatia.
Kornati is 100 islands of untouched badlands. Add the cities of Sibenik, Zadar, Muter Skradin with the 1st night in the fantastic town of Split and you’ve a holiday like no other. With time for exploration on the lay days which follow each transit day with our now famous mixture of social non-spinnaker races and the formula is complete.
Hvar, Korcula and Dubrovnik are known as icons for first time visitors to Croatia, and with sound reason. Sailors generally start their journey in Split and head south. However a whole new Croatia awaits to the north and this new rally exposes the wonderful highlights of this particular bit of Dalmatia.
Important Sibenik, at the southern end of the rally route, sits on an in depth inlet of the Adriatic, which winds its way for 10 passable miles inland to Skradin and the Krka National Park. Here spectacular waterfalls already attract visitors but the trip up the Sibenik Canal and back equals the falls themselves as an experience.
A highlight in Sibenik is the cathedral, which took one-hundred years to build and with no mortar to hold it all together! The old town is soaked in history and the fortifications that overlook modern day Sibenik offer superb perspectives across the harbour to the ocean.
Murter, Vodice and Tribunj, just a little to the north, are seaside hamlets offering excellent facilities for visiting mariners. Diners line the shores, there are pubs a lots, many offering onstage music to the night owls, and the nearby islets of Zlarin, Prvic and Kaprije are attractions in their own right.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘on the final day of Creation God desired to crown his work and thus made the Kornati Islands out of tears, stars and breathe’. 100 islands in the 20 mile long chain dot an azure sea.
Spectacular cliffs face the sunset while sheltered harbors punctuate the eastern shores. The landscape is harsh and lunar like, but incredible nonetheless. While some bays offer trattorias, most have the kind of solitude which will make a goat bell audible at one thousand metres!
With fifty or so players the rally, like other Mariner events, will have its own social momentum, which folks can be part of or separate from to the limit that they choose. So if quietude is not on your agenda it’s simple enough to make a party. This of course is the case thru the whole rally but there will be an expectation of collusion in the final night celebration at which each crew is offered the opportunity to display their thespian, literary or musical gifts!
The northernmost of the Kornati Islands on the rally route is Dugi Otok. The port of Sali on the south eastern shore is the original home of many Australian Croats who escaped the oppression of Tito’s communism during the 50′s. An Australian flag in Sali will almost certainly attract the awareness of a local who has some connection with the Tuna fishing business in Port Lincoln, South Australia. Some have even brought their Tuna farming expertise home where they are closer to the markets of Europe!
The bookend at the northwards end of the rally route is Zadar, virtually unknown in Australia but equivalent to Dubrovnik as a surviving example of medieval design. Before the coming of the Croats in the seventh century, Venetians, Liburnians, Ilyrians, Celts, Greeks and Romans had left their mark on Zadar, so the old town today offers a walk back through all these civilizations. Zadar also offers an enticing cultural cocktail and in the summertime there are regular music offerings. Like Dubrovnik, Zadar has been badly damaged by wars, all be it different wars, and the reconstructed Zadar is possibly better than the first version according to those in the club. Zadar also has the planet’s only organ that’s played steadily by the ocean.
Terminus for the rally will be Biograd na Moru, which sounds weirdly Japanese but is basically the modern centre of tourism along this coast. The 700 berth Kornati Marina is home to the fleet of identical Bavaria 47′s that will be utilized in the rally. The 47 is set up to sail while still offering comfy accommodation for six in 3 double cabins, with a 4th twin bunk cabin convenient for storage and potentially 2 more folks.
For the record the weather statistics prove a median maximum of 25C, at least 16C and an average wind strength of 12 knots during the first 2 weeks of September. The prevailing north-westerly wind follows the thermally driven Maestral pattern with the breeze powering up to a maximum fifteen knots from late morning to sundown. The rally programme on the 6 fun-race days will therefore be a mid-day rendezvous at a swim / lunch stop prior to an afternoon race to the following overnite port of call in the program. The rest are lay days so there is no rush.
There aren’t any major streams and no massive population centers through this part of the Dalmatian coast so the sea is famously clean. In early Sep the water temperature will continue to be a snug 23C and there isn’t any significant tidal movement, so truly Kornati ticks all of the boxes,writes tagza.com.
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