Plan B and C

As we usually do on our first night of vacation because of the long drive, we slept in our boat at a rest stop last night. It's one of my favorite things to do!

An hour later we were in Trogir, a beautiful old city on the mainland of Croatia.

We headed here first in order to do our annual boat registration as everyone pays a small fee to use the Adriatic. It's not a complicated process; usually you're in and out within ten minutes.

However (you knew that was coming, didn't you?!) just as Dave neared the end of the short process, the clerk asked him for our Czech boat registration.

"This is expired," she said. "I can't give you the permit to put your boat in."

And with that, we were on to Plan B, starting with lunch.

Dave made a few phone calls to Czech over the next hour, working to see if it was possible to get our boat inspected here in Croatia.  Every five years you're required to have a simple inspection; they don't even make you turn the motor on! It's more to see if you have life jackets, working lights and a boat hook, among other things.

He finally found someone who was willing to come later in the day to Trogir from Zadar (about an hour and a half away) so we decided to enjoy the rest of our day here, poking around to find new things we hadn't seen before.

While we've been here before, we'd never seen the small fortress so decided to head over there and see what it was like.

For a small fee, you can go inside, go up the stairs, walk the walls, and climb the stairs to the tower.

The view from the top was spectacular!

Had a perfect view, even of the planes as they made their way down the flight pattern into Split airport, just a short distance away.

We had just taken this photo, when Dave got a phone call from the man in Zadar.

"They've closed the highway because of fires along the way. I won't be able to come today. Maybe tomorrow."

Oh boy. Now on to Plan C!

Dave decided that we should try to get closer to him, even if it meant driving on small back roads to get to Zadar. So off we went, heading back up north.

However, what we hadn't counted on was the traffic jam because of the detour.

Our plan was to get off before the highway closure and spend the night (in our boat again) in a town along the small highway to Zadar. So much for that plan!

It took us two hours to go 3 kilometers before we finally got off the highway. We could see the smoke from the fires burning in the distance.

As we headed to the small town where we planned the spend the night, the sky was quite eery because of all the smoke. Not to worry...we were far from the fires!

We finally arrived in the town of Skradin where we found a parking lot to stay for the night (yes, this means that we go off in search of bathrooms!).

We wandered the town for an hour, ending with some ice cream before heading back to our "on-land" boat hotel!

They say the highway should be open tomorrow, so our plan is to get to the marina where our boat inspector is located.

Until then, good night to us in our cozy little boat cabin!