In over two years of living on our boat, we have had remarkably few maintenance issues, and none that have forced us to stay somewhere we didn't want to be, waiting on parts or mechanics or anything else.  This has  been extremely fortunate since everyone knows that the definition of cruising is "working on your boat in exotic locations."  Our lucky streak came to a sweaty, groaning end with the death of our windlass last week.  I have nothing good to say about hauling up a 66-pound anchor and 200 feet of anchor chain by hand.  We tried a bunch of tricks to get it running again but it finally died completely one beautiful morning, anchored in 45 feet of water at the east end of Ciovo island.

So before we hauled up the anchor by hand, we decided to have a bit of fun. We had seen other kids jumping from a nice little spot, and gave it a shot ourselves.

Back onboard, we readied ourselves for the short trip to Split, a mere two and a half miles away.  We wouldn't be anchoring again until we had a reliable windlass.

Lady luck was still with us. It was Monday morning and we had avoided the mad house of the charter boat change over that happens every Friday.  The marina and harbor both fill up to capacity while boat loads of sailing vacationers return from a week or two of cruising the Dalmatian Coast and new crews eagerly arrive to take their places.  It is total chaos.  Everyone mills around the fuel dock first, filling up their depleted tanks before heading into the marina, only to be shouted down and often turned away by the marina staff.  Happily, on Monday afternoon, the dockhands cheerfully helped us tie up to one of the outside slips.  It was not an ideal location with lots of surge keeping us off balance, but we didn't complain.  We hoped we wouldn't be there for long.

Split Marina seen from the top of the bell tower, with the east end of Ciovo Island in the background.

Asking around at the local chandlery and mechanic shop in the Split boatyard, we just got a lot of shrugged shoulders.  Realizing that we were in a pretty large charter boat base, we had the brilliant idea of tracking down the guy who runs the charter fleet.  They have hundreds of boats, each and every one of them with a windlass on it.  Surely their mechanics would have the experience and the resources to help us.  Sure enough, within thirty minutes, Zeljko was onboard taking off our motor.  He would take it back to his shop and take a look at it to see if it was worth resurrecting.  If not, he had a replacement motor in stock.  Hallelujah. 

It was time to explore Split and reconnect with our friends on Cenou.  They had left us in Siracusa, Sicily at the end of July and we were all looking forward to catching up after more than three weeks apart.  They had been in Split already for a week or so and knew the lay of the land.  They led the way to a great restaurant for the evening.

Although Croatia seems like a long way from Italy in culture and history, in reality many of the same rulers and conquerors left their imprint on these lands.  Split grew up around the Roman Emperor Diocletian's retirement palace.  The ancient Roman town of Salona, where he was from, was a few miles away, and he had an immense palace constructed nearby in 305AD.  When the Avars sacked Salona in 615, the surviving population sought refuge in the palace, which had since been converted to administrative offices and the governor's residence. Over the years the palace was destroyed and the city of Split emerged from the ruins.    

We got the sad news the next day that our windlass motor would not be emerging from the mechanic's workshop.  Furthermore, all of the motors Zeljko had in stock wouldn't fit with the rest of our windlass.  He would have to find another one and have it shipped in.  By Tuesday night he had confirmed that the motor he had located in a small town two hundred miles north would work, and they would "overnight" it to us the next day.  We should have it on Thursday, but it was possible, since it was coming from a small town, that it would take an extra day to arrive.  Of course, it did take an extra day to arrive.  By Friday morning, we were chomping at the bit to get the thing installed so we could get out of the marina and start cruising Croatia.  The minutes crawled by all morning long until we finally got confirmation that the motor had arrived early that afternoon.  Then it was a matter of waiting on the mechanic to show up to install it.  Of course, it was Friday.  The great charter boat fiasco had begun and showed no signs of letting up.  We were plagued by the creeping certainty that our charter company mechanic was somehow caught up in the drama.  When he promised to be there in 15 minutes at 5 o'clock, we knew we would be at least another night at the marina.  As the clock hit 9pm, desperation set in.  Just as we were giving up, Zeljko showed up at the boat.  The new motor, actually, did not fit our windlass.  He would have to modify it using parts from our old motor.  He promised to get on it first thing in the morning.  I'll spare you any more of the boring details, but we finally had a rebuilt and functioning windlass on the boat by 2:30pm on Saturday.  After five days at the dock, we spent an hour and a half getting the boat ready to go and finally slipped the lines at 4pm.  We made straight for Lucice on the southern coast of Brac.  

We took advantage of the summer sales in Split to stock up on all sorts of new t-shirts and tank tops for the girls.  We finally got a Croatian cell phone.  Without the ripe smell of raw sewage floating up to our nostrils from the shimmering surface of the harbor, it all seems much less oppressive. 

Three days later, we have had the opportunity to explore the area a little more.  It is amazing how much the Dalmatian Coast reminds me of the Virgin Islands, but on a much grander scale.  There are tons of islands and anchoring spots within a short sail's distance.  There are also tons of charter boats vying for each and every one of those anchor spots.  We got lucky and picked up a 100 kuna ($20) mooring in Lucice, on the island of Brac on Saturday and Sunday nights.  Our next anchorage, south of the island of Hvar was a little more challenging.  Fourteen miles and a couple more hours on the engine later, we entered the designated anchorage.  It was chock full of boats.  The charts showed an anchorage in the channel between two small islands.  We dropped the anchor and backed up towards the shore to tie off some lines on the trees. We had just settled in and were sitting back congratulating ourselves when, to our horror, we watched a charter cat drop its anchor and proceed to drag it backwards for a hundred yards, right across our bow.  Naturally, when he pulled up his anchor after failing to get a hook, he dragged ours up with it.  So much for relaxing.  We finally re-anchored and re-tied to shore.  We even put out a second anchor just to be safe. 

After a blissfully quiet night despite being anchored 12 feet off the rocks, we motored another 14 miles and scored a nice mooring ball in Starigrad on Hvar.