Croatia (the bad)

Like many things, it seemed like a good idea at the time... a week's sailing in Croatia with a group of single people... not a cheap holiday, with flights included from London... so I had certain expectations of the kind of people who would be attracted to such a holiday...

The reality was different....


The People

The bad omens started in London... not a single attractive female on board the plane!!! After meeting up upon arrival to Split, the 16 of us were split into 2 separate sailboats, roughly based on age. I was on the "young boat", but to give you a mental image of my boatmates, my fellow crew were...

· an insurance broker from London
· a health club manager from London, who spent most of his time below deck reading (?!?!?!?!)
· a man from Liverpool, who told a story about randomly picking up a ringing pay phone at a train station and, long story short, ended up dating her for a few months.
· a South African woman (she was alright)
· a keen sailor from between Liverpool and Manchester, virtually impossible to understand because of her accent, but who according to the South African, snores and farts a lot!!
· a teacher from Glasgow, equally impossible to understand
· a substantially overweight woman from the Midlands, who insisted on wearing bikinis all of the time despite the unsaid wishes of the rest of us!! (slightly better accent though, but still a struggle)

The other boat? Basically a bunch of 40-something divorcees. Enough said...


The Sleeping

4 double cabins... Let's just say I would have been rather uncomfortable in the smallish beds on my own or with a girlfriend, but sharing with an insurance broker?!?!?! (no snoring though, it has to be said!!!) So most nights I made my way up on deck to sleep on top of the inflatable dinghy. Not the most comfortable, but the real problem was trying to go to sleep early and having to listen to the noise from other boats. And the other problem being the morning. Sunrise would make things rather bright and of course if I spent too much time on deck in the morning without suncream, I could have ended up with a nice pink, sunburnt arm or something!!! So, instead of a nice 7-8 hours sleep a night, I must have averaged about 3-4 hours a night.


The Head (i.e. the toilet)

I won't linger long on this point, but let's just say there's one rule on board. No No. 2s on board!!!! Somebody didn't believe the rule, and proceeded to clog up the toilet, until the skipper managed to "get it down". Yuck! Whether it was the same person or not I cannot say, but somebody also wasn't quite clear on the concept of leaving the hand pump in the closed position when done. So, when we would be sailing and rolling around a bit... well... there would be a very full toilet bowl and some suspicious yellow liquid on the floor. For two days I protested this state of affairs by simply peeing off the back of the sailboat. And, for the rest of the week, I took great care when swimming, as I was told that the original offender would then do his No. 2s when going for a swim. (what's wrong with the toilets at the restaurants and hotels on shore!!!!) For those who can't believe it is possible, when rowing in the dinghy to shore one day, we came across a few "floaters". Yes... indeed... makes a pit toilet in Asia seem appealing!!!


The Travel

As an experienced traveller, the suspicions began when the boarding pass for the return flight said "flight time 14.10, boarding time 15.40". Hmmm... indeed the flight would be delayed. I was supposed to connect through to Barcelona, but with a 3.5 hour stopover in London. Should have been fine... but no... I finally got my backpack from the luggage carrousel and made it to the Iberia desk at 19.00 for a 19.10 flight. No chance!!! Luckily Iberia were kind and agreed to put me on the next flight to Barcelona, when they could have charged me for a new ticket. (after all, the missed connection was not their fault as the two tickets were separate) But with the next flight with available seats being at 19.10 the next day, that makes it a day in rainy London instead of a day on the beach in Spain!!!


But moving on... the good thing about Craig's World Tour is there's always another tour coming up. (rather than having to go back to work, miserable about a horrible holiday!) So it's off to Spain and Dublin for a bit of time on my own and with friends, then on to Italy...


And not to give the impression that Croatia was all bad, once I get a chance I'll post the photos of the gorgeous scenery, little coves, clear blue water. The time on the water was divine!!!