It’s hard to rush through such beautiful places, but we were only able to allot ourselves a month in Croatia, and the winds have truly been fabulous for sailing. From Korcula, we were off to Polace, which is part of the Mljet National Park. It was now high season, and the cost to be in the park with your boat is 100 euros per day! Luckily, we found out that if you take a mooring or dock space from a local restaurant, you don’t have to pay that fee. Even more luckily we had a recommendation from a fellow cruiser about this particular restaurant. And the best part was that Friday nights are dead quiet because all the charter fleets are headed back to home base for flipping on Saturday. We had the entire dock to ourselves.

A Medieval Church

We had some time till dinner, so we took a walk to the remains of a former basilica.

Then we went for a swim at the locals beach.

Dining at Stella Maris with Kalyra in the background

And then it was time to clean up for dinner.

We had pre-ordered ‘peka’, one of the most popular Croatian dishes. The cook builds a fire early afternoon, and lets it burn down to ash. They then add protein (lamb in our case) and whatever vegetables are in season), cover the dish with an iron ‘bell’, and let the dish braise for hours. It’s not inexpensive because of the time and effort needed, but it was a fabulous dish to sample right there. Of course the wine (plavac grape) is local from the island as well. What a treat.

Since it was so quiet on the dock, we didn’t have to rush out the next morning. We got up and walked into the national park itself, enjoying all the wildlife along the way. There is a huge lake inside the park, and the ticket includes a ferry that takes you around the lake and out to a monastery on an island.

St Mary’s monastery

It was a just a taste, and again we could have stayed longer, but we’re grateful we had the time to visit.