We had a nice sail from Mljet to Korčula. . . after the rain stopped. We knew we would be motoring in the rain initially, and boy were we! It poured! Michael was a gentleman (or, was he thinking “happy wife, happy life?”) and took the helm during the entire rainstorm, except for the times he came inside to warm up a bit.

But once we left the rain behind us, we had a lovely sail, like with the sail up kind of a sail. We anchored on the south side of a small island near the main island. It started to pour five minutes after we anchored. That timing was lucky. It had taken about eight or nine hours to make the trip, so it was later in the day when we arrived. We stayed on the boat for the rest of the evening.

This is a good time to note our progress: We had traveled 6100 nautical miles at this point in our journey.

Here are some pictures of the rainclouds and the eventual calm.

And here is a picture of the lovely rainbow that shone after the rain stopped, and the sunset from our boat.

We woke up on the 31st with a plan to visit Korčula Old Town and a few other sites. We needed fuel, though, so we first filled Seahike’s tanks with diesel and also filled the outboard motor gas can with petrol. Then we decided to do a drive-by of the area near and around Old Town to see where we could tie our dinghy when we went ashore later. This also allowed me to take pictures from the water, which I appreciated!

We peeked into a few churches. Here is my one picture of the Church of our Lady (of the Immaculate Conception):

The following picture was from St. Michael’s church.

I would say that we enjoyed St. Mark’s Church the most, but it might be because we climbed the bell tower. But it is also a very beautiful church.

After visiting the church, it was time to go up to the bell tower. It is reached by walking up a small spiral staircase that has tiny steps. I do admittedly have big feet (size 9.5 USA), but still, the steps were tiny. But doable!

The view from the top of the bell tower was fabulous!

It was time to just walk around a bit before going to a particular bar I wanted to visit. There are narrow streets, similar to other old towns.

We came across this narrow street with unconventional artwork. I loved it!

I’d read about a bar I wanted to visit. It is only reachable by a ladder, which immediately caught my attention and interest. It also has a nice view. Here are some pics:

When I reached the top of the ladder, I saw three patrons sitting at a table. I said, “Not a good day to wear a dress,” which got a chuckle. But, seriously, I have worn a dress maybe twice, and this was one of those days. When we got to the top, Michael shared his observation that I was wearing pink underwear. He was correct.

I assure you that the waiter did not have to carry drinks and whatnot up and down the ladder. These items were delivered by a pulley system on the outside of the building.

I tried a new drink, which I enjoyed thoroughly. We also spent about 30 minutes chatting with a lovely couple from America. I no longer remember where in America they lived, but they were very nice.

I’d read about Grk wine prior to coming to Korčula, and fully intended to buy some. So I did. Here’s a fun fact about the Grk grape:

Grk (Croatian word for a Greek) is an autochthonous (I had to look that one up) Croatian grape variety. It grows exclusively on the sandy soils near Lumbarda, Korčula. Many have tried to cultivate it elsewhere but failed.

It produces a dry wine with a full and well-rounded flavor. Grk is often called “the most feminine of all grapes,” because the variety has only female functional parts of the plant. In order to reproduce successfully, it must be planted with other grape varieties.

Grk almost never gives a high yield. With this sense of fragility built into the story and the fact that such little plant is material available (fewer than 50 hectares exist in Croatia), some fear that each vintage of Grk might be the last.

In summary, I hope you appreciate the specialness of Grk wine!

It was getting late in the day when we got back to Seahike. Michael had done some reading about the little island near our anchorage. He found out that it was five kilometers around and that there was a path that one could walk (or run!) around. That became my plan for the next morning.

I have been remiss in not showing you a picture of the monastery on the little island. We didn’t visit it, but we did see a lone monk in the early-ish morning hours twice. He looked like he would get quite hot in his brown robe, so perhaps he chose the earlier hours wisely. Anyway, here is a picture of the monastery, taken from Seahike.

Michael and I took the dinghy to the little island’s shore on our last morning in Croatia. I wanted to run the 5K, and he wanted to walk a bit.

The path around the island is mostly flat and good for walking and running. Here are a few of the pictures I took during my run.

I was a bit warm after my run, so I put my shirt, socks, and shoes in the dinghy and swam to Seahike. I knew Michael was not far behind and that he would take the dinghy back to the boat. It was a wonderful way to start the day!

And now it was time to move to our last anchorage of the trip prior to checking out of Croatia at Dubrovnik the next day. We didn’t go ashore, just anchored, but it was a nice anchorage.

We put out the fishing pole on the way, but never got a bite. Also, we had enough wind to sail again, which was lovely!

That’s it for today’s post. We will share the first part of our visit to Montenegro in the next post!