Safe Anchorage Dubrovnik

[Gr8Adventures]

Hello,

Is anyone able to give a newbie cruiser advice about anchoring near the old town of Dubrovnik. it looks like the marinas are a fair way from the old town and I'm looking for other options. I've read that the island of Lokrum is an option but that you can not have any lines ashore. Has anyone got any other advice/ recommendations?

With thanks

Suzanna

[Rapanui]

We do Dubrovnik differently. If you anchor in one of the bays North of Dubrovnik, e.g. Slano, Brsecine or Zaton, the coast road runs right along the shore and you can catch a bus into town. Good luck with anchoring near Dubrovnik.
The other way is to anchor at Sipan or Kolocep and catch a ferry. Both are cheap and excellent service. To be honest that gives you more than enough time to explore and enjoy lots of other tourists in what is after all quite a small place.

[Sojourner]

Either way bring a lot of patience.... Dubrovnik is a shitshow. Sail down to old Kotor town in Montenegro, it's much nicer, and the bay is spectacular.

[Gr8Adventures]

Originally Posted by Rapanui

We do Dubrovnik differently. If you anchor in one of the bays North of Dubrovnik, e.g. Slano, Brsecine or Zaton, the coast road runs right along the shore and you can catch a bus into town. Good luck with anchoring near Dubrovnik.
The other way is to anchor at Sipan or Kolocep and catch a ferry. Both are cheap and excellent service. To be honest that gives you more than enough time to explore and enjoy lots of other tourists in what is after all quite a small place.

Thanks Rapanui, this is really helpful. We are interested in Dubrovnik but not the "shitshow" as Sojourner describes... I will look into the ferries: That sounds a lot more appealing. Were you safe to leave the boat?

[Rapanui]

Slano, you can go alongside the municipal quay which is reasonable price or anchor bay is open to SW, nice anchorage near hotel and quay. Sipan has a nice anchorage in north side open to NW but very sheltered. Both of those are probably the best protected anchorages. The others are settled fair weather anchorages only in my view. We have used Slano for day trips to Dubrovnik, bus terminates there, gives a very pretty and interesting tour of that coast

[Rapanui]

Like all anchorages in Croatia, you need to have a constant view of the next 3 days weather, Croatia DHMZ publish 24 hour marine forecasts on web and vhf, and 3 day charts of wind and precipitation which are pretty good. Nearly all bad winds in summer are from SE (Yugo) or NE (bora)

[Ausluke]

Were currently in Cavtat, and caught the bus to dubrv yesterday. 35mins
A month or so ago we were in Zaton and caught the bus also into old town, mabe 20mins.

Both anchorage's have very average holding. I recon we have watched 5 boats drag between the two bays. After diving everywere the weed is so long and thick , it really pays to find a spot of sand an give a good power set on your hook. The wind off the mountains changes so quickly 5 knts to 25kts+ during the night.

I recommend giving space between other boats aswell, you may have a good hold but as you may know some people do not give the effort for a good set, and you end up becoming involved in their problem at 2am. ( not that has happened to us but yet..)

[Ausluke]

Tip;
( just what i do for finding good ground around these anchorages), is to use a satellite image of some kind like google earth or iphone maps used in sat mode to roughly locate clear ground.

We did this at home in Australia on outer islands to give an idea of un charted coral heads...
K

[Palarran]

Susanna, are you on a charter boat or your own? In calm waters and with the right ground tackle you can anchor in a ton of places around Dubrovnik. But in the wrong weather you can't anchor anywhere around it. We went there three times but only for a day and anchored in different places each time. I'm guessing your reading the Imray pilot guide. Just follow the suggestions and your common sense. In the worst case, you will need to bail out to the bays south or north of Dubrovnik as it is too deep and unprotected to be there.