42 55.8 N 17 09.7 E

Korcula Island 16^th – 18^th June

Racisci Bay

After an very early morning swim 0700 and breakfast of boiled eggs (Sunday’s usual fare) we left Mljetabout 1030 – probably our favourite place so far. We motored the 13.5 miles (again) in a clear flat sea through the off lying islands on the south eastern end of Korcula and into the bay – recommended by Tony on China Blue, where we dropped the anchor in 4.5 metres. It was an attractive and very well sheltered spot with a few houses surrounding the edge and some small fishing boats on their own mooring lines attached to the shore. Lovely clear water for swimming and the temperature of the water was 28C so Jacky had numerous swims during the two days spent here. Having been ashore and found the bus stop and times we decided to take an early bus to the old town of Korcula on Monday morning with a view to leaving later that day. We had a light supper at one of the restaurants in the bay of Lumbardo (nothing special) as the restaurant opposite where we were anchored was closed.

Korcula town was very pleasant and we enjoyed wandering around seeing the old buildings and many Marco Polo souvenir shops! According to local legend he was born there. There was a small cruise ship docked on the western side of the old town which was very intrusive as it towered above the watch towers and ramparts! We found a good supermarket just beside the entrance to the old town and before catching the bus back to our boat we did a bit of essential supply shopping. We sampled the local ice-cream while waiting for the bus. Delicious!

On our return we were hot and bothered so decided to stay at this place for another night so we could relax and cool off – more swimming (tho’ Rob hasn’t been in yet!). Later some 8 other boats arrived and anchored around us – fortunately most were to seaward and caused no issues. It took one of the charter boats 5 goes at getting their anchor down and set!!

Having decided to go to Hvar on Tuesday we did some research and decided that a restaurant buoy would be a nice change. We found a suitable one in our copy of last year’s 73 Places to go in Dalmatia. This lies just a mile to the east of Hvar so Jacky called them on the ‘phone and reserved a mooring buoy (as per the instructions in the book). They were most helpful and said we should call again 30 minutes before arrival and a boat would meet us to help with the mooring buoy! Sounds promising – we shall see tomorrow so watch this space for further details.