The Adriatic......

Korcula- Home of Marco Polo- at sunrise

Room with a view

Adriatic marine blue

Room with a view with window open !

Masts at sunset

Adriatic sunset

Split shadows

Croatia........

20 Observations from Croatia...

1. Croatian women are beautiful. Period. I had barely got off the plane and was already in love with the immigration lady stamping my passport. I almost volunteered myself to the female customs officer to be frisked. Never mind the lady at the Bureau d'change, waitress at dinner etc etc...

2. Croatia in August is hot.

3. Croatia in August does not do cloud. When I say no cloud you might murmur to yourself...'' Slight exaggeration me thinks ''. Think again. Aside from one morning of morning mist not a single cloud sighted in 7 days. Not one.

4. If you think the Hajj on a Friday night at evening prayer time looks busy then try downtown Dubrovnik on a Sunday afternoon when 6 cruise ships have disgorged 13,000 passengers for a 4 hour look around.

5. Croatian women are beautiful

6. There is some serious maritime money afloat on the seas of the Adriatic. Mens toys that ooze wealth and not a lot of taste.

7. The anti-smoking lobby in Croatia is having a tough time of it.

8. Croats eat large portions

9. The food is fresh

10. The Adriatic in late August delivers everything it promises

11. ''Austrian sailors'' is an oxymoron

12. Nude sailing is the preferred choice for many. There is something mildly disturbing watching a middle aged male sailor standing at the wheel of his yacht guiding his boat out of a cove wearing nothing but a hat.

14. Croatian women are beautiful

15. 8 Austrian men on a charter boat by themselves is a questionable combination. 

16. The Romans were a clever lot whose Empire was far reaching

17. The scars of the ''Homeland War'' of 1990-1994 still run deep.

18. The Croats are some of the friendliest people on planet earth.

19. The number of English speaking Croats is ridiculously high. Ridiculously high.

20. Croatian women are beautiful.

Sunset in the Mljet national Park

A reflective moment

Putting Grandma to work at the back of the restaurant

Sitting up front on a calm sea day

Destination in sight

A tranquil mooring

The only cloud sighted in 7 days.. Morning mist at 6 am

Limestone cobbled pathways

Local fisherman

Murky mooring.....or ...b.

Old architecture

Seaside vineyard

Late afternoon Split shadows

Playing the cello was never this school when I was learning it !

Marco Polo - Split

Split structure

Rub a toe for luck - Split

Parking the car - Adriatic style...........

Adriatic class

Water so clear you can see if dinner has arrived via the fish trap

Fresh market produce

Dubrovnik Old Town

Aint it the truth

A close friend sent me an anecdote today that got me thinking that it is something worth sharing.....




'Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.' 

There is no beginning or end. 

Yesterday is history. 

Tomorrow is a mystery. 

Today is a gift.

Elan33

My backside will be parked on the deck of an Elan 33 (see below) for the next week as I sail the Croatian coastline from Dubrovnik to Split. Expect a thousand and one photo's on my return!

''Mogao JA ugoditi imati neki više led sa mojim džin i koji krijepi ''

(Croatian for - ''Could I please have some more ice with my gin and tonic'')

A contrasting weekend

A game of Premier League football on a Saturday and then a visit to a stately English home on Sunday.  A weekend surely could not throw up a bigger contrast. 

Let's start with Saturday.

 

Fulham FC at home to Aston Villa. Kickoff 3 pm.

Preliminary beer and hot dog (what on earth do they put in those things? It must surely be an additive called ''repeater' because it surely did over the next few hours).

A couple of general observations.

1. I was the only male over 40 yo and under 230 lbs

2. I was the only male who wasn't wearing a big link gold bracelet around my wrist

3. I was the only male without a tattoo of the St George Cross on any part of my body

4. I was the only male not wearing cheap aftershave

5. After the riots of the previous weekend the general public seemed tired of any antics and almost welcoming of the heavy police presence. 

6. There were PLENTY of police.

7.  A day at the football is not cheap in either time nor money. Spend an hour getting to the game,  2 hours watching the game, an hour getting home, 100 quid on tickets, 40 quid on food and beverage and the scoreline is 0-0 !

Meanwhile Sunday rolls around.

No one but no one does the stately home and accompanying garden better than the English.

Wrest Park. Bedfordshire.

Despite the sirens...

A morning cycle through English countryside?

Not quite. 

Richmond Park - a mere 272 yards form the front door step.

A rant

I see myself in many ways as a typical male. (At least in build).  A 1/2 inch less than 6ft in height and if I hold my stomach in a somewhat normal physique. I also have size 44 (10 in US measurement) feet.  Pray do tell then how it is possible that I can walk into 3 different shoe shops and get the following responses when I seek out a pair of size 10 shoes that they have on display?

Shop 1. ''Sorry Sir, those shoes are on sale and we only have size 11-13 left''

Shop 2. ''That's the last pair we have sir '' (they were size 8)

Shop 3. '' We don't have your size sir  ''

I have never seen my future in being a stock expert for any retailer but there is obviously a crying need for one. It's also sexist. Have you ever seen a woman walk out of a shoe shop empty handed ? I can't even spend 55 quid of my hard earned.

Speaking of hard earned. My heart goes out to the many people in London who have lost their livelihoods and homes to the idiots who have been rioting over the past few days. Every so called '' expert '' has the solution. I'm no expert but here is my 10 pence worth.

My suggestion is this, and it runs pretty close to my views on Western foreign policy. Rather than spend millions fighting the consequences, spend a few million on discovering why it is that you are having to defend yourself in the first place. God knows how much the USA for examples spends on defence each year. (One second, I will find out.... $663.8 billion for the year ending in 2010.) I'm reckoning if they spent less than 1/10th of that on discovering the reasons why it is the Islamic world dislikes them so much then that defence budget would be slashed. 

So too the problem of rioters in London. Let's not blame so much the kids looting and thieving but rather look at the reasons for their discontent. You come from a 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation social security family. Your parents have never worked. You are socio economically challenged and are a racial minority. You have left school early and have no job prospects. It's summer and if you were going to school you have 2 months to kill before it's resumption. Social clubs and youth centres have closed down due to governmental attempts to balance the budget. However most importantly to mind is that their idols are not community, parental or religious leaders but rather the people they worship are over paid, poorly behaved,  football stars whose preachings and behaviour advocate the consumption of all things materialistic which only serves to magnify the gap between the ''haves'' and ''have nots''. Strive to live the bling regardless of the consequences of your pursuit in achieving such, seems to be the message. Rather than wheel out another political figure or person in authority who no kid respects get some of these ''idols'' to earn their keep and get them out in front of the public and the young. Along the way perhaps also address the issue of how much these chumps are getting paid to kick a football and the knock on effect it has on widening the gap between the people who play the game and those that support it. The highest earning football star in the UK earns £225,000 AFTER taxes per WEEK. Your average income earner makes £18,359 after tax in a YEAR which means it will take 12.2 years for them to earn what Carlos Tevez earns in a week. Yet these ''idols'' have no respect for authority on or off the pitch and you only have to look at the way they abuse referees to witness that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XoURT5ugpI&feature=related

Don't tell me there is not something fundamentally wrong with that picture and the example it sets to the thousands watching and who idolise these prats. And let's not just single out football players. What of the rap stars whose messages are often anti authority, or the thousands of video games that promote destruction and lawlessness ? 

Most importantly though is that in this era of political correctness we spend far too much time telling the next generation what their rights are and not nearly enough time telling them what their responsibilities are. 

You have a right to earn hundreds of thousands pounds for your football skills but you also have a responsibility that comes with it. Transgress the responsibility then lose the right.

You have a right to protest. For sure. However you also have a responsibility to do it in a civil manner with respect to others livelihoods and property.  Transgress the responsibility then lose the right.

If the people who are idolised and that society promotes to a podium don't set the example how can we expect their supporters to?