43:43.68N 15:25.84E

A short three hour trip by motor to the southern part of Kornati National Park.  Again not much wind in the morning to sail.  Kornati National Park is comprised on a group of islands along the western edge of the archipelago.  It is an interesting place in that there is almost no vegetation on the islands.  Various histories tells why but it looks like a combination of cutting trees for firewood and clearing of the land for sheep and agriculture took a large toll.  It was further destroyed by large fires that burned for over 40 days across the islands.

It is now a national park to preserve the ruined in some ways landscape.  This part of the Adriatic is very dry so getting trees to grow again will probably not happen anytime soon.  With the loss of the vegetation the skimpy topsoil was lost to the wind and rain so the hillsides are very rocky with just sparse tuffs of grass.

Our first night stay is at an island called Ravni Zakan.  According to the pilot guide there is an anchorage well protected on the south side.  We looked at that and obviously everyone already knows about it and had anchored there.  I could have squeezed into on small area but the jet ski’s racing about put us off.  We started for another cove to the north when we noticed there were some mooring buoys on the north side of the island by a small restaurant.  This turned out to be a good spot for the night, however the buoys are way too close together.  In fact I attached a very close on to the stern of the boat to prevent another boat from grabbing it and staying right on top of us.

This is also the time for the Italian Invasion.  August being a popular month for vacation and Croatia being only 70 – 120 miles away, many Italian hop on the power or sail boats and come over in packs.  In this little cove several boat came who knew each other and they also appeared to have rented a holiday house on shore next to the restaurant.  Prior to this time the dominant boats, besides the charters, were Austrian, German and French.  From now on the Italians will dominate in August.

Welcome sign to the park and a typical barren hillside.

Anchorage for the night.  Not the best protection from the northwest winds but they die down at night so it is not too bad.

Another hillside shot showing the sparse vegetation and a typical local rental boat.