43 11.04 N 16 35.6 E

Stari Grad

We arrived quite early having motored the 14 miles and found the town quay very quiet. We duly berthed with the help of one of the port marineros and handed over our boat papers for processing. The long inlet that leads to this ‘World Heritage’ site is very attractive with wooded slopes and many small bays where one can find a sheltered anchorage. In the CA pilot updates Jacky had found an entry about a laundry service (something we were in dire need of) so before arriving she had called the number and set up a pick-up time for the following morning.

The old town was quietly impressive and as we wandered through the alleyways and squares we were struck by the permanence of the place and its lack of tacky tourist gimmicks! However all was not ‘golden’ as we later found out that Wednesdays was not a good day to be here. Two charter fleets arrived one with 20+ boats all First 35s which had been chartered by an Austrian racing group and the other some 10 boats that were pretty much full of inexperienced ‘sailors’ with skippers, out for a good time. We were very soon penned in with little room for fenders and braced ourselves for a noisy night! Added to that 3 large live-aboard type gullets docked alongside each other and the disco music started pretty much around 1800 but fortunately finished at 0030. (Could have been worse I suppose!) We resolved not to stay on the quay for a second night but moved to a mooring buoy as far away from the quay as we could get once the laundry had been collected! Another walk around the town later in the morning for some shopping and photographs was followed by a quiet and relaxing day with swimming off the boat. We were on a mooring buoy close to a restaurant called Ermitaz which features in the booklet we have - 73 places to dine in Croatia. We examined the menu and also noted it was very popular both at lunch time and in the evening – a definite place to try when/if we get back here later in the year. Our date with Bara one of our former Czech au pairs beckoned so we headed off again on Friday morning after collecting the laundry from the quay, for another new port on the north west side of Hvar – Vrboska.