Mama Mia!

August 15th, 2019

After spending the night at Vis, we have begun our return to Tivat (Montenegro) in earnest this morning.  As always happens with vacations, Jinhee’s vacation is coming to an end.   Of course you wouldn’t know she is even on vacation given the amount of work she is doing. Alas, coming to an end, it is.

Yesterday we took the short jaunt from Sibenik to Vis (which is where Mama Mia was filmed) because we heard it was very scenic.

The place is PACKED with boats and so we were on a mooring ball for the night but had no trouble finding places for the dinghy and the bay is very clean, allowing for a nice swim to cool down from another scorching day.

Of course Jinhee is the official photographer, but I did get a couple of photos to share.

The photo above is actually from the trip up to Sibenik.  Its rush hour on the water!   There are a LOT of boats heading in both directions on the path to Sibenik and in this photo you can see about a dozen of the boats headed towards us on our way North.   Krka, the falls we were actually heading to is located up a narrow channel (long past this photo) where it gets down to 80m in width and the traffic is just as heavy so navigation/traffic awareness is a full time job.   At one point we had a tour boat operator fail to make way for a sailboat heading toward us and then after that danger had passed, decided to turn in (which would have made way for the sailboat) and almost take us out. (#%$!).  This despite both of us remaining on a clear and consistent course.   Crazy to be sure.

Jinhee has all of the photos of the falls, at Krka, and it was lovely to see, but it is worth noting that I grew up living on the Fall River, which has (surprise, surprise) falls, so I have seen plenty of falls through my life and I didn’t have to deal with the thousands of tourists that showed up at these falls.   Of course I was in Niagara a month ago too, so these falls are ‘picturesque’, but I dunno C$80 for two people for a couple of hours.  You just have to ignore the money and say you’ve been there and done that.

The Krka falls are in a national park and the tourists come by the boatload, making it a crowded and touristy excursion.  Funny that I have avoided buying a cottage in cottage country because they are getting so close together (you know, with a cottage every few hundred feet), and here I am in tourist hell.   Oh well, back to the boat!

For me the highlight was being able to show Jinhee a tadpole in the wild on it’s way to transitioning to a frog.   Of course not a single other tourist around us noticed (this very geeky event) as I was pointing out dozens of them, but it was cool to see that.  I don’t know that Jinhee had ever seen that before (or cares to ever see it again actually, now that I think of it).

In any case we enjoyed Krka which is in a nice little town (Skradin) and a LOT of popsicles as these past two days are the hottest we have seen (37C).  After the Krka falls, I did a short bike ride to keep the legs moving and then we headed off to Vis.

Now Vis is worth visiting (and there are a LOT of people who apparently agree).   The harbour is packed, the restaurants are packed, but the museum . . . it’s empty.

Honestly there isn’t much to see at the museum unless you like the sorts of geeky things that I like to see.   There are a lot of examples of pottery, some burial items, a few tablets, and one of my favourites, money.   Money that is supposedly priceless, but honestly, it’s just bits of copper that aren’t good for anything anymore.   The economist in me loves to take pictures of these coins (and notes too) from all around the world that are completely useless except as museum pieces.   Its only value is in stable government, and the governments backing these pieces are all gone now.

The photo above piqued another of my ‘referential’ issues with religion.  Those little square things in the back, those are altars to various gods.   Do a google search for ‘altar image’ and see what a modern altar looks like.   The whole idea of growth, bigger, better, more! is central to who we are, but do nothing but consume resources (labour, material, money) and seriously, is your god so shallow that s/he cares about the size of the altar you use to praise him/her?  Really?  Okay, no more beating up on the fallacies of religion and finance for today.

After a rough start this morning, the winds have died down and the sea is, once again flat.   We will run South, probably to Miljet and then spend the night.   While we would like to make it to Cavtat, it is a long run, we won’t make it until after the passport control folks close up and so we will relax at anchor somewhere and enjoy one more night of stars before we arrive in Tivat, hopefully tomorrow evening.