Thursday: Stone Age fishing and so much OJ.
I’ve been writing this blog as the sun rises every day, it’s such a peaceful time on the boat. I am by no means a morning person, but this week has been mostly early to bed and early to rise, as I’m sleeping outside, up behind the helm. It’s covered by a roof, so dew and moisture isn’t much of a problem. During the night a gust of wind sometimes wakes me for a moment, but the waves lapping at the shore put me right back to sleep. I wake really clear headed, and I think I’m going to miss sleeping outside when the trip is over.
Our first swim of the day was along the sheer cliffs of Mana Island, where the ruins of an old movie set loom above us, and that submerged marine shelf lies about 40 feet beneath us. I’ve done more research on this, and am pretty convinced the shelf was made during the Holocene, roughly 10,000 years ago, during an inter-glacial period when the sea level was static for a very long time. It could also be much older. Could humans have walked on the platforms? Maybe. I haven’t found any scientific papers that specifically discuss these submerged shelves in the Kornati islands. As open water swimmers, we have a unique view of these kinds of things. It’s possible that very few if any people have done what amounts to a transect of the Adriatic facing submerged shoreline of the Kornati islands. We are amateur swimmer/scientists.
Finn gets ready to jump to kick off our morning swim at Otok Mana! And thank you, Ante for the awesome photographs from our boat!
Finn made some big leaps off of the cliffs, and we swam along the light/shadow lines where “God rays” occur around you. Schools of fish greet us, Swifts fly above us, and at one point Finn and a cormorant accidentally came face to beak.
We are fortunate to be swimmers out on the water this week, rather than hikers or some other land based thing. It’s hot. But the ocean is around 73 or 74. When the wind blows, it cools us off. If it doesn’t blow, we jump in the water. Easy.
This is a fun group to swim with. They’ll pause to look at stuff, but they’ll also put their heads down and swim sometimes. We all respect each other’s paces, and share little discoveries. It works.
A little video recap of our amazing morning swim, with original vocal music by our very own Finn Weafer. XO
Lunch was a smorgasbord of Mediterranean delights and we made quick work of it! Thanks, Matea!
For our afternoon swim, we returned to Mala Panitula, where a thunderstorm had stymied our swim earlier in the week. I boldly announced that the swim around the rocks then around the island and back to the yacht was way, way less than a mile. Heather disagreed and said it was a mile. Wagering began among all of us, with estimated ranging from .65 miles to .91 miles. We jumped in and glided over the drop-off, where the sea floor goes from 8 to 300 feet deep in one stroke. The downwind swim on the southwest side of the island was a little bumpy, then we lingered a bit on the other side, then behind the boat. Heather’s Apple Watch logged 0.99 miles, making Yafa the winner and Heather wishing she hadn’t listened to me and reducing her estimate.
We have way too much orange juice on board. Adults tend not to drink the stuff, and besides, we have way fancier cherry and watermelon juice to drink here. Guest Jodie took to the task, making Kornati Mimosas with prosecco, Orancelo, and freshly squeezed lime juice. We barely made a dent in the OJ supply, but the drinks were fantastic. Grilled Celeriac over hummus for dinner, cute little Croatian cakes and Baklava for dessert.
Afterward, we all hopped in the dinghy for a ride to nearby Vela Panitula for a sunset walk. A note on Kornati sunsets - the actual sinking of the sun is great, but these sunsets linger for over an hour, and the sky changes color the whole time. We think we saw Italy from the top of the climb. Back at the yacht, most of us swam a lap around the boat to cool off before dreaming of Stone Age people spearfishing from the shelf we swam over today. Okay, maybe I was the only one dreaming of that.
Hopper
Our yacht, Forever Young, sits alone in this beautiful harbor.
Pic 1, L to R: Myssie, Yafa, Heather & Jodie. Pic 2, L to R: Hopper, Heather, Skipper Ante & Chef Matea.
