Sailing in Adriatic • Iž

Motorboat Adriatic 790

It's early afternoon and we're already in the Tankerkomerc marina in Zadar. Today we're chartering the Adriatic 790 motor-boat for two weeks. We find the boat at the beginning of the main pier. It's an 8-meter vessel with one not too strong diesel-engine. The boat looks quite spacious for the two of us. Although it has 4 berths I think it would be a bit too small for a 4-member crew. The boat looks a bit worn-out, no wonder, it's 15 years old. At least it was not too expensive. We slowly start loading enormous quantities of water, food and luggage from the car. It seemed to us wiser to buy in advance majority of the things we'll need on our journey than to search on the islands pricey shops that often don't provide everything one needs. Although it's the end of May, it's very warm. In about one hour the guy from the charter agency arrives and soon we start checking all the equipment on the boat. The anchor light does not work - so we better be careful where we anchor, it would not be funny if someone collided with us in the night. The boat is not equipped with battery indicator - so pay attention on how much electricity you use. Otherwise one could find out the next morning that it is not possible to start the engine because the refrigerator has emptied the batteries. The guy says: the fridge consumes X amperes, works X hours daily, the engine generates X amperes, it works X hours daily - so you make the equation and calculate how many hours daily must the engine work to be sure not to empty the batteries. It seems to me that we should run the engine for 2-3 hours daily to be certain to be able to start the engine the next morning! After a little while, the owner of the boat arrives with his wife, and starts explaining us the details of functioning of the boat. We find out that if we drop a piece of toilet paper in the toilet or if we don't operate the toilet pump according to his directions, the toilet will jam, and than help yourself if you can!

After 3 hours of listening to various explanations on this and that under the hot sun, the owner decides to show some mercy, ends his monologue and finally allows us to sail out. We push the boat away from the dock and slowly sail out of the Zadar harbor. Once behind the main harbor pier we move aside to let the big ferry pass and sail out to sea. After our rapid small boat with 18 HP that we use in the summer, this Adriatic looks like a dieing cow. We turn the rudder aside and than the boat reacts after an impressing delay. Well, we'll have to get used to it. We are already pretty tired so we set course to island Ošljak, pass along its eastern side and keep sailing close to the coast of Ugljan. We turn around Cape Zaglav, pass in front of the small church and sail to the M. Ždrelac strait (in the various names in this text M. stands for "Mali" = small, and V. for "Veli" = big), right under the bridge that connects islands Ugljan and Pašman. The currents in this 20 m wide strait make the sea very agitated so we are a bit afraid of how are we going to pass through it. We add full throttle and aim at the middle of the strait. It's OK, we're through. We turn around the islet Karantunić and set course to the southern side of island Iž. It's already getting dark so we're in a hurry to reach the bay Vodenjak where we intend to spend the night.

We navigate along islets Mrtovnjak, Temešnjak and small Školjić and enter in the tight bay on the south side of island Iž. A few boats are already anchored here. We find a place wher we anchor in sand. Our anchoring technique is pretty primitive - we just drop the anchor in the water. Well, afterwards we pull a bit the anchor line to check that the anchor holds (we don't have the anchor winch). It is a Danforth anchor and it seems to be heavy enough for our boat. The day was very hot and we're all soaking wet, so we jump in the (too) cold sea. One minute in the sea is more than enough for good refreshment. On the stern we have a small platform with stairs that make the entrance in the water easy. The evening is calm. We prepare our first meal on the gas cooker. We didn't forget to bring along an important quantity of beer. Water reservoirs are located at the bottom of the boat and when the boat lightly moves in the night they make a somewhat irritating noise...

Iž (Vodenjak)