sakolk - Tumblr blog

sakolk · 7 years ago

Text

Sailing the Adriatic from Split Croatia

Split, Croatia. Kate and I Had been hiking and climbing in the Alps (Slovenia, German, Austria, and Italy) for three weeks before making our way to Split Croatia. We arrived the eve of Croatias World Cup game against England, and unbeknownst to us; ULTRA a city wide electronic dance music (EDM) festival which was taking place outside the city, but also had parties on ships in Split’s harbor, and in some of the cites parks.

Our goal was to sail out of AMC Split Marina Saturday as early as possible and make way for one of Croatias several hundred islands.

7/5: Split: Kate and I arrive in Split, and make our way to Wonderful world Hostel in Old town. High Season (summer, July - September) makes Hostel somewhat more expensive. We meet up with two other member of the crew: Audrey and Ned, who have been here since the night before and understand the layout of the town. We deposit belonging and set out for our first Crew dinner, where we meet up with Sarah, who had just gotten in.

First crew dinners are usually about reviewing the outline of the trip; however we still had two more crew in transit; so we went over the next day, the Marina, supplies, food, and a course of sail. Klemen, who wasn't there yet; is a Slovenian local, who'd been to the Split area several times, free diving and spear fishing; would be helpful in our decisions later.

7/6: Split: Sean gets rope/checkout marina.... Christiana shows up. We split up, half going for the morning market, half investigating more general grocery stores. Getting food is an odd balance since you don't want to store the food too long before it's on the boat, when you don't have anywhere to hold it.

7/7: Split: We weren't supposed to check into the marina till 4pm, which is a lot like losing an entire day of sailing; but I talked my way on to the boat at 2pm, we still didn't get checkout out till about 4pm anyway, but we walked on the Beneatue 35 and got a sense for it's layout and rigging. Fortunately we were able to get a car parked in the Marina, so we could start storing food and bags there around 12pm. There were probably 200+ boats of various sizes in the marina, and at least half of them were attempting to leave Saturday. However, the wind had picked up (we would learn the wind report was unless at best) and there was a world cup game at 6pm. As we rushed to load the boat, go over a quick checkout, with some not so accurate descriptions (and realizing the water tanks hadn't been filled). We attempted to head out of my first Mediterranean moore. The We hadn't even let of both of the stern lines, before the bow started to dive leeward, and we realized it was too much to leave on our own in such tight conditions. We tried calling both the marina, and our charter company for help... but with a game on, and it being 6pm and the sun wasn't that high in the sky... I admitted defeat, and prepared to settle in for the night at the marina.

7/8 Split, Golden Horn,Hvar, Stari Grad, Brac: 09:00 After a night of heavy bass drumming, and sunrise children returning to their beds (there are several yacht week flotillas that take crew out for a week of partying, who were in for the night). Klemen and I prepared the boat, received help from our next door ship to spring around (cantilever) their bow. With the slight help, we were off at about 9am, motoring out of the mouth of Slip, and into the Adriatic sea and the Dalmatian coast.

13:00:: Our original plan was to head to Brac for the the the 7th, but we had enough time now to set out sights further. With light winds out of split we motored south to the straight between Brac and Slota, to come out to moderate winds. We set sail and headed for the Golden Horn, a crowded beach, where we set anchor under sail and had crew go to shore for an hour. Then the winds picked up to 24kts, and we sailed under heavy conditions to Stari Grad, a developed town, were I undertook my first med moor (no anchor), backing in among the other expensive rentals. We had cafe and restaurant front seats. The crew dispersed, seeking wine and cheese, and met back for dinner.

7/9: Stari Grad, Brac:: Paklinski Islands (Single Anchor.): After a Cafe Stop in town, we motored out to light wind, with Christina at the helm, under her Ned and Sara trimming. We found wind two to three miles out, and set sail on a close haul. The wind continued to pick up as a pulled around Hvar's west point, and we realized we didn't have a cove or course set. We also realized we didn't understand the terminology behind heading, course, bearing. So; we hove-to (another teaching moment!) researched our options, and what words we should be using, and made in for the Paklinski Islands. We found that we were late by Croatian flotilla standards, and all the mooring had been taken. We also realized our captain and the helm we're communicating, so there was some distress over where we were going, boat traffic, and if we should be sailing or motoring. The crew who had been at the helm for six hours, was let off, we pulled in the sails, and put on the motor. It took two tries, but we set anchor not far from a restaurant mooring, and set up for the night, put the dingy out, and set to shore for dinner.

7/10 Paklinski Islands: Brna (Quay: Med Moore, on Anchor): The next morning we learned we had lost a fender, and went over which knot to tie for fenders (round turn and two half hitches). We motored out, after looking for our fender for half an hour set sail with a solid beam reach, set sail Brna. Brna, turned out to be a sleepy town with a traditional med moor Quay, where we decided to set up with the help of the local dock man, who ... showed us how aggressively you can use your engine, We found wine and fish, and relaxed for the night.

7/11 Brna: Lastovo (Anchor - Line to Tree) The next morning, we took off with ned at the Helm, sailing close hauled as we got further and further away from the main land the Southern Swell became more apparent. The prevailing Bora wind (from the coast) made for choppy waters, but we made for Skrivena Luka, stopping at the light house just before, sending the dinghy with almost all the crew (and a radio), to dive just off the cliff, while myself and Sarah worked on tacking into the wind. We picked up the crew off a point, and made for the cove, where we anchored, hiked up to the light house we were just below, and made lunch. We decided to keep going, just a bit further along the island, and anchor in a cove on the West side; where we set a line to a tree (to not swing into the boats at our sides) and went free diving and paddle boarding as the sun set. Unfortunately, the hornets were lively, and we had to cram into the cabin until the sun set, only one person was stung, and he was swatting at them.

7/12 Lastovo : Komiza, Viz (Free Moore in harbor) After collecting the line, and taking up anchor, we motored out, testing the wind, which was rough, and mostly sailed to the far side of Viz with Kate at the helm. We attempted to stop at a reclusive beach, but it was packed with other boats, and anchoring would have be difficult, so I made the decision to get out of there, and head to Komiza, were we snagged a moor just of the beach were dive boats left in the morning. Komiza is a large town as far as the Islands go, and it gave us opportunity to hike, find gelato, explore the streets, and plan to scuba dive the next day.

We had dinner at a off shore restaurant (we had been eating with sunset views on our boat almost every night), where we played bocce, and stayed for three hours waiting for our roasted octopus and lam.

7/13 Komiza, Viz: Solta ( 2 anchor + Line in Cove) The next morning, I set off to paddle board, while three others took the dhingy to spear fish. I hopped in to see if there was anything to shoot (there wasn't) so I paddled around, and watched the sun rise. at 9 am we all voyaged to the dive site, where we prepped, and they took us to a shallow wreck (20m). We found three small octopus, a few nudibranchs, and several curious fish.

After we got back to the boat, we headed north for Solta (almost all motor) out last anchorage, where we dropped between a family cruiser with kids, and a 60ft pleasure barge. After dropping our bow Anchor and tieing off toa tree, I felt we were still too close to land, so I extended the stern line, and Klemen took the stern anchor, rowed it out in the dingy, and dropped it on our port side, in hopes of keeping us from swaying into the rocks if the wind shifted too much. We made out final dinner of French onion soup and pork carbonara with sea urchin before we had to be back in Split 9am the next morning.

7/14 Solta: Split Klemen and I woke up at 4am to remove us from out anchors, then set out, all motor, straight to Split. We arrived at the gas dock just before 10 boats came in behind us, filled up, and then waited for the marina to find a place to put us (it was chaos again). We successfully moored (twice, in two different spots), and began our unloading hustle. We packed up the car, made our way to a restaurant with banana splits, and then.. split.

Logistics:

I'll do a cost breakdown later, but I believe it came to around $700 a person (without flights).

We booked through https://www.sailingeurope.com/ which turned out to be http://orvasyachting.com/ in Spilt.

Croatia has a wind forecast, but it wasn't all that helpful, Windy App was useless.

We used the Navionics Boating app, it worked well.

Moorings in cites can be booked, and fill up quickly, if you arrive after 4pm, good luck, many boats are just motoring from city to city, so look into calling. They can be around USD50 a night, many have electricity, water, trash disposal, and showers, booking them if you don’t speak Croatian seemed hard, there was an air of ‘we don’t want to deal with you’ if you only speak english.

Moorings in coves are cheeper, but still fill up, if you eat at their restaurant, it might be free, and some of them pick you up from your boat.

We needed a VHF license (HAM radio works) and some kind of sailing certificate to sail in Croatia (US Sailing Basic Cruising worked for me).

There are re-supplies on almost every island, don't over shop food.

It would have be good to know:

When check in/checkout time from the Marina is, we didn't know until two weeks before.

If you are getting fruit, don't get ripe fruit, it'll go bad to quickly.

There are hornets in some coves, there were too many to eat outside.

That there was a music festival that weekend, oh and the world cup, I probably should have called the hostel owner and asked what to expect that weekend.

0 notes

sakolk · 7 years ago

Text

Progression and Feedback as a lone traveling Pilot.

Wisdom comes from learning, learning comes from experience, experience comes from mistakes.

- A google image search for ‘wisdom’ I found at 4am.

Transferring experience into learning isn’t as simple as having had that experience, there’s also the processing of those mistakes and experience; solidifying those learning's by reflecting on the actions taken. Mastering those skills and knowledge and turning those learnings into wisdom (a term I would never use in front of anyone you’re attempting to lead or instruct) by teaching others and seeing where the methodology is in unrefined or un-transferable.

As I was paragliding in the French Alps in 2018 I ran into a British Pilot who befriended and took me under his wing while we camped in the same site just outside the town of Annecy in the paragliding capital of France; Doussard. I had just achieved the rank of novice pilot (P2) in USHPA, and was making my tour around Europe. I was getting in over my head and flying with guided groups cross country, with, what almost every pilot I met said was 'too little experience.'

Dominic didn't critique my actions, instead he asked what was the logic behind my decisions, or 'what precautions have you taken for this scenario.' He was less interested in hard set rules, and more interested in the and why's rather than what. This is difficult in paragliding, since unlike many other outdoor activities, you really can have fatal mistakes paragliding, and almost everyone knew someone who’s no longer with us. This leads to stark reactions to those not following norms, and protective behavior of launch sites. All of this is understandable, but still difficult to tread as a new comer in a foreign country.

As we talked throughout the week he brought up concepts and adages that gave me confidence, or at least perspective on the conversations I'd been having with other pilots: "A pilots can fly 100 of the same hour, or a 100 different hours, a lot of these guys have more hours than you, but have only flown two or three sites, you’ve already tripled that in a fraction the time.” I was traveling solo, but always flying with others, never taking off first, and asking as many pilots as I could what to watch for, how to handle a feature, or and if there was anything else I should know.

As a point of scene, the majority of pilots I met were older (50+) males who had been flying over ten years. Paragliding isn’t an cheep sport to get into, and much like sailing, everybody seems to have an opinion on every little, thing, and you’re always doing something wrong in someones eyes, it can be tiring navigating the social aspect even without the actual act of flying. In one instance, a french Pilot asserted concern over my wing, he said it was too advanced for how much time I’d been flying. Dominic, asked why he was concerned, in which he responded that he would feel bad if I was injured and he hadn't said anything. Dominic pointed out that he had now said somehthing, and I was aware of that, and had thanked him, and that It was now up to me to make my choices in the matter.

I learned after this encounter that Dominic was a retired consultant, and he was employing a simple technique call 'Active listening." It was almost as if he handled every encounter with 'soft hands.' He was ask how, and why several times before ever going into a fact. It was in a way setting the stage so that anyone could give input, and informing them that once they had accomplished that, they had the choice in how to proceed next. It was a way to understand feedback, unwanted advice, and process the desired and objectives of those I was encountering.

As we continued our week flying Dominic told me about his experience consulting, and the company he had founded as a result of his motorcycle enthusiasm; training police and riders on new technology changes (paradigm shifts) and how to adapt riding styles to the development. His core belief was that if you weren't progressing your were regressing, and the best way to continue improving was to keep stepping up the ladder, and checking off skills, even if you don't think they're immediately relevant. We also talked about the importance of guided experiences; how taking your comfort zone further with the help of guides allows you to normalize risk that you can undertake later without the aid of others.

All of this was solidified when just a few days later, I traveled to the Swiss alps with my friends who were practicing acro-paragliding, which I was neither set up for or prepared to do, and they gave me the opportunity of practicing collapses, spirals, surges, and partial stalls (maneuvers I was always hesitant to do without a lake, or the promise of a quick ride back up to launch), and finally my first tandem flight, where my friend took me far beyond my comfort level and showed me wing overs and really took my past my personal comfort level, while showing me what to expect and prepare for.

By experience a broad range of personalities, teaching styles, and environments I’m exploring the tools and lessons I learned by writing and reflecting about these topics in their own scope, and in in hopes that I have the time and ability to pass on what I learned to others.

0 notes