Leon Worldwide!: Croatia, Croatian Sailing

Croatian Islands
Sailing, Swimming, Drinking Games

This has got to have been the best part of our trip so far. I can’t even start to explain how relaxing and fun it was. If anyone was to ask me what to do when they went to Europe, without a doubt, id suggest sailing the Croatian islands. I took more photos on this trip than I have anywhere else, but did possibly the least amount of things in the last 8 days than I have for the majority of the trip. All we did was swim, drink, eat and everyone apart from myself had daily naps around 4pm hahaha. But ill explain that all in this blog post.

Split to Omis

Departed Split and started our first day of sailing. So, we basically just grabbed a beer and met all the peepz on our boat and tried to gain street cred by picking on the dweebiest person and making people laugh and think we were ultra awesome. I gathered up the toughest looking guys and started the first gang on the boat and proved my toughness by skulling 2 pints of beer and then burping the national anthem of Bulgaria.

Sooooo, ill start again, with the truth. haha, ok, so we just set sail and the Canadian busabout chick Andrea told us what the hapz was. She was pretty awesome and her job is the best ever. She basically gets paid to tell us what the deal is and where we are going every day, then she just drinks, parties and chills with us. So freakin awesome.

After we got told what we were going to get up to in the next few days, we just sank a few beers and met everyone on the boat. Turns out that half the boat was from Perth, a quarter from Adelaide, and then the rest were made up with 3 girls from Australia that were now living in Nottingham (where I was born), a girl that was born in Nottingham and a couple from Sydney and Melbourne. WEIRD!!!! Not only was it weird most the boat was from Perth, the other quarter lived where I was born!!! WHAT THE FLIPPIN FLIP SIZZLE!

We arrived off the coast of some small islands around 30 minutes from our first stop the island of Omis and had a swim. This was the first taste of the crystal clear waters on the Croatian coast. It’s amazing. I can’t even explain how insane the water is, so warm and clear. I must have spent 50% of the trip jumping off the boat and swimming in the water.

The weather wasn’t the greatest, was pretty overcast but still quite warm. We got informed that the last boat trip that arrived a day before us didn’t go to half the islands because it was too rainy and choppy. ASS! Wasn’t looking good, but we set sail with our fingers crossed that it would pick up, and just to spoil the intensity of my story so far, the weather came in good and we had awesome weather over the 8 days.

That night we also had a pirate party to help us to get to know everyone on the boat. We drank lots of beer and I stabbed one guy with my sword and my parrot shat on his rotting corpse. *sighs* That bit didn’t really happen :(

Omis to Makarska

We strolled around Omis in the morning then set sail around 1pm for the island of Markska.

Every day we have a swim stop, where we just park in a bay somewhere along on the way, or off the coast of a small island and just float around and swim and jump off the boat and generally chill out in the glorious Croatian water.

We eventually arrived in Makarska where we were informed by our delightful tour leader Andrea that we were hitting some cocktails bars and a club that was in a cave that used to be a weapons storage place in the war. BANGIN!

We went out for dinner before we went out and once again the food was awsome. I had fish and it was so good.

So we geared up, put on our make up and get our crunk on with some pre-drinks on the boat.The club ended up being pretty awesome and I don’t really think any of the photos really capture the fact that the entrance to the cave is on a cliff face facing out to the open sea. So when you are in the club getting your freak on, on the dance floor you can look up and look straight out to the open water. Pretty amazing!

The club in the cave! (above)

Makarska to Bol

We set sail around 8am while we were all still asleep, many with hangovers, for Golden horn beach, on the island of... I think Jelsa. We parked about 100m off the beach and a few of us swam across to check it out. Well, turns out that 100m was about 400m and there was a current pushing away from the beach. Now, I can’t swim very well at the best of times, the last time I tried to do some laps at the gym pool in Perth I did about 5 laps and nearly drowned while the 90 year old dude in the lane next to me was lapping my punk ass. It’s tougher than it looks. So combine my lack of swimming ability and the current and the miss calculation of distance, but the time we got to the beach, the swim back was looking like death. hahaha But, ended up being piece of piss. Thank you current! (not the ones you eat, the one in the water that controls the water n stuff. Google it.)

Once we got into the Island of Bol, I headed to the supermarket to pick up some 2litre beers that cost like 4 aussie bucks... You heard correct ladies, none of this Australian 330ml bulll shitttttt, I’m talkin a man sized 2litres. Makes your liver shiver doesnt it!

Me and Suzie stindged out and didn’t go out for dinner that night, so I kicked it on the roof and drank some 2litre beer goodness and Suzie napped it up. There was another boat doing the same route as us and it was full of 14 mates that had met up to do the islands together, they were pretty loose and spent most the time in Speedos or just flat out naked. I know. What the shit. But they invited me over onto the roof of their boat and I ended up drinking with them for about 2-3 hours until I spotted that my posse of pirate hoes were back on my boat. By this time I was half cut and had drank 4litres of beer. Nice! We ended up playing some awesome drinking games, like, Ride the bus, Kings (aka Circle of Death, Fuck You and the Boop game). We called it quits around 2am to save ourselves for the next island, the main party island. Hvar. But ended up being an awesome night and a cheap one!

Bol to Hvar

I ended up hearing the boat stopping around 11am for our swim stop, getting straight into my boardies and throwing myself off the top of the boat before anyone had even realized we had stopped for a swim haha. The islands we had stopped at was directly opposite Hvar and the water was the best yet. Our guide said we should swim into shore and go to this bar which was pretty much the only thing on the island. The swim was a bit of a bitch but the bar was so awesome! Apparently the bar is only open til around 9pm, then it closes and everyone heads to the mainland of Hvar to party in their sister club that opens at like 10pm.

This was the bar we swam up to on the island (above)

Hvar is a bit of a party island, but also a major stop for celebrities cruising around Europe in the summer. Andrea our guide mentioned that sometimes whole clubs are closed to the public because someone like P Diddy, Paris Hilton or Screech from Saved By The Bell was partying there!

We headed out around 11 after having some pre-partying drinks; a few 2litre beers went down a trizzeat. We arrived at a club that was on the dock right near our boat that had a live saxophonist dropping some solo bizness over the top of a live DJ, there was also a bongo technician, technicianing the bongos over the saxophone, it was a mash up of maximum proportions!

At this bar, they also had bar staff that were flaring like crazy. You could go up and ask for a water and they would find some way to throw about 15 glasses around there heads and catch them with their big toe and then drink the water and spray it out there ear into the glass while coughing out the ice cubes or something. It was wild. They also had a fetish for fire and were spitting fire and lighting the bar on fire and lighting bottles on fire and throwing them at each other n shit. It was crazy. They sure know how to give people cheap thrills to stay in a club! In the VIP section outside, there were some hell wannabe celebs to, they had their own photographer who was getting all crazy eyed and taking a ridiculous amount of photos on gay angles, and then there was this groupie chick who was like deep throating an ice cream cone of gelati in this guys face to get him all boned up. It was a pretty entertaining club!! haha

We then went on to this next bar, that was more relaxed, lots of tables and chairs and these tubes of beer you could get put on your table. We were going to get 2 people to a tube and see who could drink that fastest and get totally sloshed, but too many people rocked up with glasses and in the end we only got a glass each. Totally lame.

There were a couple of other clubs that night, but they weren’t as entertaining as the first 2, but served alcohol, so they did the trick.

Hvar to Korcula

The night before Andrea our guide mentioned we weren’t having another swim stop for the trip, to which I rallied my men, we started a mutiny and made the scurvy land lubber walk the plank! Which really means, we all said we can’t live without swim stops and she organized more.

I once again woke up around 11 to the sound of the boat stopping and we were stopping in a really small bay with no beaches or anything, just tree's all the way up to the water’s edge, with another island directly opposite where we had stopped. This water was even warmer and clearer than the last stop. Croatian Islands are seriously the bomb!

We had all been jumping off the boat, but no one seemed to want to go as high as I was going even though I was trying my hardest to encourage people to go higher, so at this stage in the trip I was up to the 4th rung of the boats mast, while

most people were only jumping off the roof which was about a metre or so lower than where I was at. But it was still awesome fun jumping off the roof don’t get me wrong! We were playing all sorts of ball sport games involving jumping from a height and doing specky catches n shit, it provided some entertaining stacks and painful slaps on the water haha.

Korcula is the place where Marco Polo was crapped out or something. Even though they can’t confirm that, they just pretend that he was born there to get tourists and every shop is called Marco Polo. Marco Polo Pizza, Marco Polo Jewelry, Marco Polo Brothel, all sorts of stuff. Apparently Marco Polo Brothel you can sample a woman of every ethnicity from every continent. It’s a potential sex smorgasbord!

We went out that night to a cocktail bar at the top of a turrent on the castle walls, the cocktails were passed to the top of the torrent by a pulley system, as you could only get to the top of the turret by a HELL steep wooden step ladder thing. You would wanna get pissed up there and then attempt to get down!

The turret bar & cocktail pulley system (above)

Korcula to Some Islands I can’t remember

Woke up around 10 or something and paced around the boat until we finally reached our swim stop for the day. It had been raining, so was a little over cast. But we were there to make the most of our second last day of sailing and spent allot of time in the water and I took it 1 rung higher and did the 5th rung of the mast. Which was awesome haha. The rest of the guys also went higher and did the 3rd or 4th rung and we were flipping off the boat and doing all kinds of wack shit. Making the most of it! We also got some awesome photos of most of us making a circle, with the landscape in the background. Was pretty funny!

We arrived at the islands and there wasn’t much there, 1 supermarket and some buildings that still had bullet holes in them from the war in the early 90's which is pretty surreal. We just basically stocked up on booze ready for the final dinner, The Captains Dinner, where we eating a hell big feed and party with the boat staff. The boat staff are a family and were SO nice. The mum, "Mumma" is the cook, The dad, "cappy" is the Captain and the daughter and son, Maria and Peter are deck hands and serve us booze. So it was kinda like a final dinner and thank you night.

After dinner we got as crunk as ever, playing tunes and major drinking games. "The Boop Game" was going off and one dude was hitting his thighs so hard during "Fuck You" that he had bruises on his legs the next day hahaha. It was an awesome final night and we crashed out late.

Drinking Games (above)

Some island I can’t remember to Dubrovnik

Had our final swim stop and just swam and floated around like usual. Then arrived in Dubrovnik around mid day.

We caught the bus into town and walked around the top of the Old Town's Walls which protected them in battle during the war. Took some awesome photos, which you can see below.

We then headed off to go Kayaking in the ocean, which was supposed to take 30 mins to walk there, but ended up taking an hour because we got lost. Which sent the females crazy, because it was hot and they were all flipping out haha. Kayaking was awesome and we paddled around this island for 2 hours and saw some naked people at a nudist beach, 2 of which (a male and female) seemed to be getting pretty friendly underneath a towel. Dirty sons of bitches!

Kayaking (above)

Kayaking is pretty heavy on the arms, especially when you’re always drifting slightly to the left and have to correct yourself all the time because your right arms stronger! It was a little frustrating, but we ended up powering it home and were all so knackered from 2 1/2 hours of walking and then 3 hours of paddling!

It was the final night, and we all chilled together and then crashed out early for potentially the greatest sleep of the trip haha

In the morning we said good bye to everyone and then sorted out the next part of our trip, heading to see Sonja in Bosnia and then off to Exit Festival.

The Croatian Islands were amazing, and definitely the best part of our trip so far. I can’t explain how amazing the water and the islands are and how relaxing the last 8 days were.

NEXT IS EXIT FESTIVAL! SO EXCITEDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!