Hi Michal,
If you are used to
Greece there a few points about sailing in Croatia that you will need to consider.
1) They will insist on at least one of you having a recognized sailing qualification, for UK sailors it is usually RYA Day
Skipper, or an
ICC (International Certificate of Incompetence), (or, of course, anything higher), and if the yacht has a
VHF then you must also have a
VHF licence. There are web-sites that show what they accept for sailors from each country, but I expect that your
charter company have already explained all the to you.
2) I am glad you like
anchoring in quiet bays, as in Croatia anything else will cost you...
Look up the web-sites of some of the ACI marinas that you might visit and look at their scale of charges. Even the local harbours will charge you, but it should come in somewhere between 50% and 100% of the equivalent marina. In some harbours they have
mooring buoys which are cheaper but they charge for those as well...
Not a lot of what you are used to in Grece with free village quay
mooring, or "sorry we have to charge you 3 euros for an 11 metre yacht". Basically make sure that you
budget for mooring charges on those nights where you can't find a free anchorage (in some places they even come round and charge you for anchoring!). In some of the bays the restaurants have their own quays or mooring buoys and these are free providing that you eat in their restaurant.
3) Visiting Croatian National Parks (e.g. Telasica on Dugi Otok, or Krka) will also involve a visitors charge so remember to
budget for it.
4) You mentioned the trip from Sibenik to Scradin up the Krka river. Definitely well worth doing it. I did actually sail all the way up it once (we got into a bit of a
race with an Elan that overtook us as we got close to the Sibenik bridge). I certainly wouldn't recommend sailing it! We were completely knackered by the end, short tacking in a gorge about 4
boat lengths wide against the
wind and
current, and the guy in the Elan won anyway, and wasn't even tired (he had
electric winches).
I am sure that you will have a fantastic trip, I might even be going back to Croatia again this year (I think it was 2003 when I was last there), but out of Dubrovnik so no return to the Kornatis for me this time.
Martin