Ston, Croatia Ston has the distinction of being the town with the longest wall in Europe, often referred to as the Great Wall of Croatia. It is some three miles long, over a very high rugged terrain. We wondered why a small unassuming town would require such heavy fortification, and the answer is its strategic […]
Central Mediterranean We’ve had several friends ask us to write a food blog during our travels, but we already had the sail blog and we wondered who would really want to see pictures of the food we eat. We’ve never considered ourselves to be “foodies.” We like to cook food and we love to eat […]
Southern Dalmatia, Croatia When planning to cruise in Croatia, we worried about how difficult it would be to learn the language. We looked at translation books, mastered the basics: “Dobar dan” (hello); “Koliko?” (How much?); “Govorite li engleski?” (Do you speak English?). Once we got there, we realized that everyone in Croatia speaks English. Perfecto! […]
Split, Croatia I am frequently reminded that I only like to talk about the good side of our cruising life in the blog, showing pictures of beautiful islands and writing about exotic foreign ports, so here is an example of the other side. We have bad days too. Having put off some boat maintenance projects […]
Trogir, Croatia We were told by our Croatia cruising experts to spend at least one night on the town dock at Trogir. It was mentioned several times, with the stress on a “must do” experience. We did not know why it was so important to be on the town dock, but we have learned to […]
Vis,Croatia A marine weatherman once said, “If no one moves, no one will get hurt.” He was talking to a group of Caribbean cruisers over the radio as they asked, one by one, if the weather was good for their point of sail, but never seemed to hear him when he said, over and over […]
Skradin, Croatia Berkeley East is a “blue water” boat. She is heavy, with a deep keel, a strong “Beast” made for ocean passages. So the idea of taking her up a river in Croatia to see a waterfall seemed a little odd, especially when we realized that there were bridges over the river, one that […]
Otak Zut, Crtoatia We had just gotten back on Berkeley East after a swim when a couple passed by in a dinghy. We were anchored far back in the huge Luka Telascica national park, and finally beginning to understand the beauty of Croatia. We’d heard over and over again how gorgeous the country was, but […]
Istria, Croatia We sailed Berkeley East to Croatia for two reasons: one, we had heard about the great cruising there; and two, it was time to reset out VAT clock (we are only allowed to have Berkeley East in the European Union for 18 consecutive months or we have to pay Value Added Tax -VAT, […]
Piran, Slovenia When we sailed into San Remo, Italy last June, we never imagined that Berkeley East would be in Italy for an entire year. It was an incredible time. There is still so much to see in Italy, but it was time to move on. Our next stop was the tiny country of Slovenia. […]
