Croatia | Sea | Kayaking | Tours | Lifejacket Adventures - Adriatic Expeditions

Warm spring day; the crack of leather on willow followed by polite applause from the crowd; men dressed-up like modern day white knights in helmets and padded armor; picnic blankets and coolers filled with wine, brie and crackers - yesterday anyone would think we were enjoying watching cricket in the English countryside.

Amazingly the game was being played right here in Split between the local Split Sir Oliver Cricket Club and the Further Friars Cricket Club, a traveling team from England consisting of gents in the wine industry.

Cricket is a game you must grow up with - or the rules will never make sense. We attempted to explain them to the French expats - they just got bored and went home. But there is an historical connection between the French and cricket in this area.

Cricket is not so alien to Dalmatia as could be expected. On Vis Island there is the Sir William Hoste Cricket Club. It is run by Nik Roki and his son Oliver (Oliver was born in Perth before they moved back to the island in the 70’s).

The club’s namesake was an English naval officer stationed on Vis Island for several years at the start of the 19th Century - the English had just kicked the Napoleonic French garrison off the island. (The English called Vis Island the ‘Gibraltar of the Adriatic’ because of its excellent strategic location.)

William decided that the wild Dalmatian island on which he found himself needed a touch of civility - so he started a cricket club. A couple of years back Nik and Oliver re-established it. Oliver usually cooks us an awesome baked lamb ispod peke on their winery whenever we visit Vis with our tour’s guests.

Unfortunately for the visitors yesterday they ended their innings 3 runs shy of the local team. Their next match is to be on Vis this week.

For another perspective on the day’s proceedings visit Jane Cody’s Croatia Online. Jane’s the lovely lady in the picture above, making sure the batsman’s box was properly adjusted!

Ray Fusco has been helping us with promoting our tours and needed a new flier to pass onto Jersey Paddler.

The Croatia Boat Show was on again this week. Its Split’s chance to see the latest bling - and not just that which floats. Here’s Aklie learning what’s important in life!

The Lamborghini was not for sale - it was a sweetener if you bought one of the super-yachts.

Most of the boats were of no particular interest - just a lot of plastic, stainless steel and LED lights.

The boat of the show for me is built by a Slovenian company, Shipman Carbon Yachts. They were showing their 24m version, the Shipman 80, designed and produced in their factory next to Lake Bled. Its almost a Wally Boat - but not quite. The particular boat at the show was recently purchased by a Croatian. The Shipman 50 won European Boat of the Year in 2004.

Leopoldo from Bolici Yachts showed us the Carbon Cube 36 - a racing yacht made completely from carbon-fiber. Its like a Ferrari 430 Scuderia - a stripped-down red racing machine - but with what Bolici saved in weight during the construction of the hull they added some cruising comforts - such as a kitchen and a head and made these out of carbon-fiber as well.

For those that already have a Porsche Carrera in the garage, Fearless Yachts have teamed with the Porsche Design Studio and are making a 8.5m speedboat with 600hp and a top speed of almost 75 knots inspired by the car, for the boat shed.

After the sun went down, the parties began.

Azimut Yachts was kind enough to be offering music and free Moet. Tim seemed to also appreciate the girls which were serving it.

The European Cities Marketing Association has released figures which shows Split is #1 on a list of European holiday destinations for growth in visitors between 2001 and 2006.

“Split saw an annual growth of around 17% in tourists, to top their survey of 93 locations across Europe.

In 2006, some 200 000 holiday makers crowded into city of some 250 000 inhabitants, a 400% rise in the number of holiday makers from 1999. Their average stay was 2.2 days.

The trend continued in 2007, but according to Split-based daily, Slobodna Dalmacija, tourist numbers decreased slightly by 5 000 due to a lack of accommodation as old hotels underwent renovation. (It may have been something to do with the terrible job that was done on renovating the waterfront or the fact Split suffers from a lack of a coherent tourism plan!)

The 2001-2006 survey shows that U.S. visitors and tourists topped the list and were followed by French and Spanish visitors.

A transit point for a number of Croatian islands, Split and its famous old town dominated by the Roman Emperor’s Diocletian Palace dating from the end of the 3rd Century, has become a key tourist attraction in Croatia, challenging the status of the legendary town of Dubrovnik, some 200kms to the southeast.

The tourism boom has seen real estate prices skyrocketing with properties in the old towns going for as much as 6 000 € /square metre. (This is just nonsense made-up by the local real-estate agents!)”

Some of what is written above is true - we have seen a constant growth in our laundrette business - but I wouldn’t trust the figures supplied by the local tourism board here in Split. Personally I think Dubrovnik tourism would have had far more (and better quality) growth. The opportunity is here in Split - it will just take hard work by everyone.

As a follow up to the last post about Croatia’s bid to join NATO -

“NATO leaders have agreed to invite Croatia and Albania to join the alliance.

The agreement was reached at an informal dinner of the NATO heads of state and government on Wednesday night.

For the third aspirant country, Macedonia, the leaders hoped that it can be invited as soon as possible given the fact that Greece, a NATO ally, has made clear that it will veto the invitation unless Macedonia changes its official name.

The Greek delegation made very clear on Tuesday night that Macedonia’s accession to NATO would be impossible before the settlement of the name dispute.

Greece fears that the former Yugoslav republic’s constitutional name — Republic of Macedonia — implies territorial ambition for the neighboring northern Greek province of Macedonia. But Skopje has refused to exchange its official name for NATO membership.

On Ukraine and Georgia’s application for NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), chances are small for them to be given this status at the summit.

The leaders reaffirmed NATO’s “open door” policy and were of the view that MAP for the two countries is a matter not of whether, but of when.

The leaders also reiterated that there is no veto by third parties, apparently in reference to opposition by Russia.

Russia has warned that NATO membership for the two former Soviet republics would bring instability in the region.”

It always bodes well when ‘instability’ and ‘Balkans’ are used in the same sentence!

Today’s picture comes from the set of Bella Biondina. The movie, based a true story of a young Split girl who falls in love with an Italian Fascist soldier at the end of the Second World War, is being shot on the streets of Split at the moment. It is being directed Danijela Marušić, who also made the locally famous mini-series Malo Misto. It was interesting to see the reactions of the locals to actors in Partisan uniforms. Many were indifferent, but some reacted with strong negative feelings.

Whilst I was in Trogir the other day I saw the replica of the 16th Century galleon Tirena, a typical trading vessel of the period from Ragusa (i.e. the Dubrovnik Republic), which is used for excursions outside the walls of Dubrovnik in the summer. Its 30m long and 7.7m wide. The drawings for the replica, completed according to old plans from the Dubrovnik Maritime museum, were done by Velimir Salamon, the man responsible for the falkuša.

The ship was constructed in Omiš, at a cost of about 1 000 000€.

Speaking of old boats, work continues on the leut. Mate, the Dalmatian carpenter, is replacing a certain number of planks. Roger, the English mechanic, will start work soon on renovating the motor. The crew will be an Aussie and a Frenchman - its becoming a true UN project.

Looking across the leut’s shed, for the last week the USS Mount Whitney has been tied up. The Whitney is the flagship of the United States Navy’s 6th Fleet (the Mediterranean Fleet) - it flies the pennant of Vice Admiral James A. Winnefeld.

It is considered to be the most sophisticated Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence ship ever commissioned. It can receive and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on earth through the multitude of HF, UHF, VHF, SHF and EHF antennae on its decks.

The Sixth Fleet has both US and NATO responsibilities, and is based in Naples.

So why is it in Split?

President Bush is on his way to Eastern Europe. He will stop in Ukraine before going to Bucharest, Romania, for the opening of NATO’s largest summit ever on Wednesday.

NATO leaders will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as well as officials from the European Union and World Bank. They will also vote on expanding the alliance to include Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia, as well as vote on accepting applications from Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance, a move that is opposed by Russia. On Friday Bush will then come to visit us in Croatia.

President Bush will wrap up his trip in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussing the U.S. missile defense system.

Joining the EU (hopefully by 2011) and NATO are the biggest issues in Croatia at the moment. Some people are against the moves - a new organisation has been formed in Croatia called the Anti-Imperialist Coalition, which has announced protests against President Bush at Franjo Tudjman Square in Zagreb on Friday at 5pm.

Though we are not happy with Americans at the moment - one competitor, American-owned Adriatic Kayak Tours, has been stealing our photographs to use on their website (we are fighting to have them taken down) as well as copying our Vis Tour- we see definite benefits in Croatia being an EU and NATO member. For instance we could take AKT to the European Court and not have to wait for the slow Croatian courts to deal with their infringement of our copyright.

So, things are heating up here and in the rest of Eastern Europe, with the West moving East. On top of all these meetings there have been the problems in Kosovo for the last month. That’s why the most important American ship in the Mediterranean is docked in Split.

Today was an example of that though Dubrovnik is definitely a beautiful town, it is quite superficial - Split has a tougher, yet richer, life.