More Adventures

After's yesterday's adventure of finding out our boat registration in Czech had expired, Dave spent the day trying to figure out what to do.

Before I go on, I have to say that Dave is usually SO on top of these kinds of things! But with all the car troubles he'd been working hard to solve, plus a very full summer schedule, and no letter from the Czech boat registration agency to remind us (like they did last time), it was just one of those things that slipped through the crack.

But true to his nature, he persevered and figured out a way to do it all the way down here in Croatia. So this morning, bright and early we showed up here.

This is the largest marina in all of Croatia, located just a little south of the city of Zadar. There is a Slovak man here who is able to do boat inspections for Czech boats (who knows why?!), so we made our way here early this morning to meet up with him. After telling us that it would be at least an hour, we headed over to the marina restaurant for breakfast.

Oh wow! What a classy place to enjoy waiting for him to do his work! We ordered cappuccinos and omelettes, thoroughly enjoying the cool jazz music playing, not to mention the view!

When we got word that the boat inspection was finished, I wandered around for a bit while Dave met with him. If our boat wouldn't have passed, we could have picked up this sweet little used boat to spend vacation in.

It's "just" a little over a million dollars. 😂 As I walked around I definitely felt like I was in someone else's territory!

With news that the inspector would finish up the paperwork and have it to us by email later in the day, we happily got back in the car and headed for Trogir again, since that's where we still had to register the boat in Croatia.

We'd already explored the town yesterday, so decided to walk over to Čiovo, the little island connected to Trogir by a drawbridge. It was fun to see Trogir from the other side!

And the fortress that we'd been at yesterday! Felt a little like déjà vu, but nevertheless we were still enjoying ourselves as we waited for the paperwork to be finished.

Thinking that we'd be out on the water in our boat within a few hours was a happy, comforting thought.

We went back to the restaurant we'd been at yesterday to have lunch, talking about where we'd go tonight once we put the boat in.

But two things were still standing in the way at 3 PM. One was that the inspector stopped answering his phone. Dave had been calling every hour to check on the paperwork process, hoping that we'd be able to get to the Croatian office yet today to register the boat.

The second thing standing in our way was that we found out the boat registration office CLOSED at 3 PM! At that point I asked, "Do you want to just take the ferry over to Hvar?"

So, here we are on the ferry with our boat still being towed behind our car! Our original plan was to put in on the mainland, leaving our car and the trailer over there. But now, we're on to Plan D (since A, B and C are no longer possibilities!).

Honestly, I love being on the ferry to Hvar. It is oddly comforting and enjoyable.

And the best part? Another strong wind came up again this afternoon, which would have made it impossible for us to have gone out in our little boat! We'd still be sitting on land, spending the night in our boat hotel if we'd stayed in Trogir.

Instead, we're headed to our beloved Hvar where we'll be able to finish the registration process tomorrow (since there's offices there where we can complete it), providing that our inspector gets us the paperwork.

We'll still spend the night in our boat on land (for the third night in a row!), but at least we'll be closer to putting it in than before! And we'll be on Hvar, which feels a little bit like home.

Stay tuned for more adventures with Dave and Connie tomorrow!