Dubrovnik

Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Tue 11 Jun 2013 12:00

Dubrovnik

We took the bus from Cavtat to the old city – our first glimpses were from road that runs high above the sea so very spectacular especially as there were two huge cruise ships at anchor in the bay close to the outer city ramparts. We opted to rent an audio guide which proved to be most informative as we wandered around inside this old city. On entering through the main gate across the drawbridge there is a map which shows where all the shells fell on the place during the 91/92 besiege by the Serbian and Montenegrin armies – it was quite shocking to realise how short a time ago this had happened and how horrific it must have been for the citizens living there. The restoration work has been completed and the city stands proud as before. We loved wandering around the lanes and broader avenues and wondered at the huge defensive walls and towering forts. If you haven’t been it is a ‘must see’ in my book! For our return journey we took a local ferry and this too was a bit of an adventure as we stopped at 3 small villages around the rocky coast to drop off passengers and we were able to check out the possibilities for us to take Arwen . None of them looked too promising unfortunately. The following day we did some shopping and had a meal out at a café/bar in Cavtat with our Dutch friends Philip and Alfonse. We were up bright and early on Tuesday and motored all the way to the outer harbour of Dubrovnik in Arwen where we took a number of pictures before heading for the river and our next port of call – Dubrovnik Marina. This is set some 3 miles up river - inland and we were soon anchored NW of the entrance to the marina in the company of a couple of other yachts. Jacky went ashore to sort out the gas bottle refill and get some fuel for the outboard while Rob stayed on anchor watch. The gas bottle refill depot is about a mile from the marina but once there the bottle was refilled quickly at a very cheap price of 30 Kuna (£4.00) and on the way back petrol was bought from the fuel station opposite the marina entrance. There is a good supermarket at the entrance of the marina and so some essentials were also bought here before Jacky returned to the boat. She had met a lovely couple from a boat called Arthur’s Pride – Doreen and David who had firstly helped her locate the gas depot and then kindly put the gas bottle in with theirs in a trolley basket! We hope we will see them again as we cruise around in Croatia. Having achieved all we needed to do we settled down for a restful day and night – or so we thought! Around midnight we both felt the boat was not quite right and got up to find we had dragged our anchor downstream some 100 metres . The wind was gusting fiercely and combined with the strong current we were being swept towards the bank! The anchor was duly retrieved and we then set about re-anchoring only to have the dinghy flip off the foredeck in an almighty gust of wind as we tried to turn the boat. Fortunately it was attached by the painter so we didn’t lose it! After this Jacky requested that we go alongside the waiting berth at the marina which was duly completed with some difficulty as the wind was still gusting above 40kts. The duty staff told us we couldn’t stay where we were but Rob insisted we did not want to try and negotiate our way into the very tight space with mooring lines offered to us. A compromise was reached – we could stay until the expected 90’ catamaran arrived or 0800 which ever was the first. We got back to bed around 0130 and slept well. The following morning Rob went to the office and we had to pay the full whack – 90 Euros despite not having used water or electricity or any of their facilities! We left shortly afterwards and headed for our current berth alongside at Ston a small village with a big history. More in the next  post.