The Komiza debacle

Other than the Military history, the accommodating Kut and its wineries, the island of Vis has two other attractions, those being the Green cave and the Blue cave. An easy sail to the Green cave, then on to the Blue cave put us adjacent to Komiza, the 'young' 11th century fishing village on the other side of the island.

Best to get there before the hoards we cast off at 8:55 on the 15th September. The wind became a little southerly, unusual for this time of year but we were unaware of the problems that may cause. We found a calm cove on the lee side off Ravnik, the island of the Green cave, dropped the dingy and headed around to the cave.

What we never quite get used to in Europe is if there is anything worth seeing, you can bet that every man and his dog will be there too.

It got quite choppy due to the southerly, but still manageable in the dingy. This cave is 'green' (although it appeared blue) due to the light coming through a small hole in the roof of the cave.

Some skill was required to avoid not only the other dingys but the very senseless swimmers seemingly unaware of the dangers of spinning propellers needed to keep dingys from contacting each other and or the cave walls...

Enough of that. Time to head for the Blue cave. The wind picked up and by the time we arrived it was hard to see where the cave was or how you would access it. There were swing moorings for visiting yachts to hook up to, most were occupied and all seemed to be way to close together in the chop.


The way to connect to swing mooring is to pick up the buoy with a boat hook and connect our bridle to it.... easy said. Getting way to close to the other moored boats I attempted to position us over a vacant buoy. Sal managed to hook onto one, raising it seemed impossible in the wind and chop. The bridle then got tangled with another buoy which put us very close to another boat with no way of escaping... Now the object of mounting spectatorship, William badly strained his arm while desperately hanging onto a boat hook when mercifully the bridle disentangled itself and we were able to move without making contact with the other boat. We lost both boat hooks in the process making any further attempt impossible and so with tail between our legs, we limped off toward Komiza.

Komiza is another classic Croatian harbour looking as it has for centuries... Ten of them to be precise. The fishing village of the island, not as inviting as Kut but picturesque none the less.

First stop the chandlery for two new boat hooks....

A catamaran moored next to us and we got chatting. The subject moved on to the Blue cave and our debacle..."Yes, we saw it all, you lost your boat hooks but because we are a charter boat, we didn't need them so we just left them in the water...." Nice, thanks.

Another minor result of our debacle was the steering column on the dingy had somehow totally dislodged itself and needed urgent attention and the imminent weather convinced us that we'd stay put for two nights.

Not the worst place to be marooned, happy to be here wishing we were out there rather than the other way around. The morning dawned and for only the second time in three seasons an Aussie boat moored right next door with two kids on board....

In no time we were sharing wine, food, stories and were mutually ecstatic for the kids.... that is until Mr Port Authority came along and told us that we had to vacate the harbour because by midnight a semi hurricane was washing in making the harbour untenable.... Ok! Back to Vis on the lee side then. 11:45am and we were out of there.

The weather worsened, the wind grew and it was a great sail back to Vis. It felt like we were coming home as we re-entered the bay. Back in the same spot for two very big nights with our new Aussie mates, Jake and Danni McAuliffe. Poor guys are not sure what hit'm!