Off the grid

Dalmatia, Croatia

When moving Berkeley East from one country to another, there is always a period during which we are disconnected; no phone, no internet, no communication. So we try to get ahead on bills, business and blogs whenever we cross a sea. We expected the crossing from Italy to Croatia to take about 10 hours, so we rose with the sun and planned to complete all internet tasks underway. Rapid typing on an iPhone while sailing Berkeley East and dodging cargo ships is always challenging. Mistakes get made, things are missed and the connection simply goes away without warning. Sometimes it takes as much as a week to get up and running again, as was the case in Croatia.

We landed on the small island of Lovosto to check into the country – “Welcome to Croatia!” The reception was extremely friendly, the check-in process simple. It was a completely different experience than our first entry four years ago, probably the contrast between small islands and major ports. But while tiny islands might ease check in, they complicate getting connected. So began our days off the grid in Croatia.

Next stop was Korcula where we knew we could find what we needed within a day or two, hopefully.

The first day being disconnected can be a bit stressful; as our ears are trained to hear the little ding on the phone telling us we’ve got mail! And we are used to reading the news, looking at Facebook, checking weather, not to mention having website access for touring research and boat repairs. We wonder how we ever traveled without a smart phone. But once we accepted the inevitable of no connectivity, day two was more comfortable.

While we missed being in touch with friends and family, and were a bit concerned about not having daily weather forecasts, we did not yearn for news reports on politics, riots or terrorists. We finally relaxed and enjoyed living in our little Mediterranean bubble, losing ourselves in the music, escaping reality into books of colorful fictional characters.

We shared stories about Big Lar’s cruising adventures in the 1980’s, remembering phone calls through ham radio operators requesting boats parts upon our next visit. And a time of family crisis when the Grenada Coast Guard went in search of the Irish Rover to tell Big Lar to phone home. We doubted that we could have done this, back then.

So how long can one live off the grid? In our case, it is the length of one detailed weather forecast, which is three days. On day four, we got connected, or so we thought. Turned out it was just enough to get the weather and move Berkeley East to Loviste, where the fish and lobster salad are fabulous but ATMs and phone stores are non-existent.

We knew we had another three days of weather reports, and fantasy life, before we had to get serious about finding reliable phone and internet service. So we decided to embrace our life off the grid and stop in Klement for some swimming, hiking and meat stick.

On day six, we reluctantly left our paradise and headed for the big city of Split where we knew, without a doubt, that we could get connected. And so we did, with much anticipation to see what we had missed, and who had missed us. As we checked our inboxes, we found lots of junk emails. When we looked at the news, it was the same. Even the weather had been cooperating. Turns out we don’t have to check our phone every ten minutes after all.

Comments 1

23 Aug 2016 – Vanessa

A meat stick? DIdn’t you get enough souvlaki in Greece? The drone shots of our favorite places are spectacular. I hope we see you in the Adriatic, but you may be gone before we get there!