While drifting through the Croatian islands, we got wind of a mythical sea cave on one of the larger islands. I showed an Insty pic of the cave to the Dinko (Captain) “I want to go here” he replied, “Da, da we go!” he recognised it instantly. Geeze, that was easier than I thought. Coincidentally we were not too far from the island with the cave.
We dropped anchor at Korcula for the night and discussed a plan which didn’t excite me. It involved taxi buses, bushwalking, climbing cliffs and a whole lot of hard work carrying heavy gear. We formulated a better idea. Take our rented 150hp bright yellow RIB (AKA Banana Bros. Tours), fang between islands in the open sea at 30 knots (hopefully faster), get there in a fraction of the time before the crowds and swim for hours. Easy! El Capitano didn’t like this idea – at all. He said, “Too dangerous in the rough open sea – too deep to anchor”. I mean, what could go wrong? We know boats. We grew up fanging across to Rotto, which is a similar distance (about 18 nautical miles).
Stocked the boat full of water, beer, fuel and food, downloaded navigational apps, boom! Ten of us took off the next morning cave stalking on our crowded little blow-up.
The winds were up (a bit more than forecasted) and giving us a bit of chatter – but all good.
A third of the way into the journey our solo outboard carks it. Yeah, dead in the water (broken driveshaft or something like that). We have no radio, a couple of expired flares and thankfully some mobile reception to call for help. Rescue came, girls calmed down…an no man overboard. Phew. If it broke down in the middle, we’d probably still be drifting to Greece.
Plan B. Leave from safe anchorage with big boat. Back to long taxi rides, bushwalking, climbing cliffs in 35-degree heat. We made it there by 3 pm. It was a mind-blowing sea cave, crystal blue water with an exotic swim through into a vast collapsed chamber. What made it even better is the bar clinging to the side of the rock-jumping cliffs above this cave. The owner hikes the beers in (in her backpack) and serves them from a 100-year-old stone fishing hut. Just another day in Croatia! :: uge
So happy you found that cave, bloody hike and a half though! At least you didn’t climb down the collapsed chamber