After a lovely evening, we decide to get up early because we have six or seven hours of travel with little wind. So it is six o’clock when the alarm goes off. We get up quite quickly, get the coffees and drinks together so that we can get on our way.

As we go past Korcula Town, it looks stunning and on the far side of the town is a large marina with a number of 50 metre motor boats, similar to Casanova. Clearly they have to get out early since about half a dozen of these leave at the same time as we go past. We need to be careful not to get in anyone’s way but we seem to be in the middle of a convoy of ships. This is fine for a while but the problem is that there is a little blue fishing boat in the way. As one of the big boats goes to avoid him, the electronics on our boat light up – he will hit us in two minutes! We give them a little room knowing they will return to their previous course when they get past him but better safe than sorry. The water is an absolute mill pond, so no sails for us today but we are enjoying heading in the same general direction with our escorts.

We take the opportunity of a bit of tranquility to clean up the boat. In particular, the seats for the rib have been stored for a year and are quite mucky and once this is done, we decide to focus on the stainless steel around the boat which has become tarnished. This is incredibly rewarding as it shines after we have put a bit of effort into it. Maria likes things shiny!

I go down below and randomly check the state of the batteries. Overnight they generally go down to about 70% but I had noticed they were only at 50% this morning. I am disappointed to see them at 36%. The solar is contributing but it is a little cloudy and the combination of navigation on top of everything else is pulling from the batteries. So why is our two year old hardly-used super-duper alternator not doing what it should. This was supplied and fitted by Ollie at Seapower who, as described previously, has done a fantastic job with the electrics on Mariadz. Firstly we check the voltage at the alternator which is reading the same as the batteries on our battery monitor. There is a regulator on the wall which controls the alternator and it flicks through its settings, confirming that the controller thinks it should be charging. Ollie thinks there is either a problem with the alternator or a problem with the “blue wire”. If it is a problem with the alternator there isn’t much I can do so fingers crossed when I check it later. We always have the generator to top up if we need.

We arrive in our chosen anchorage Uvala Tarsce which is deep in the middle but everyone anchors and then attaches mooring lines to trees and rocks on the side to stop them moving. Similar to med mooring without the docks and cleats – and you are a little bit further away from the rocks than the dock! This is a first for us, but an important skill to learn. Our first step is to prepare to drop the anchor, this will stop Mariadz going onto the rocks. Then the mooring lines are tied to a tree on the shore which will stop her moving around.

As mentioned this was our first attempt so it took about forty minutes to complete. Firstly, I started to drop the anchor and then got Maria to drop the rest as she came back in astern towards the shore. When I went to the bow to check, I noticed that we only had twenty metres of chain out which wouldn’t even touch the bottom where we started so we had obviously been holding the anchor suspended above the sea bed until it got a little shallower, but the anchor wouldn’t be where we would want it. So start again. This time I do an initial anchor drop to the depth of the water and then leave it to maria to continue dropping anchor as we go astern. We are good now and sitting about thirty metres off shore. As for the aft lines. I have decided to go with a bridle across the two aft cleats, which should pin her better than a single line to shore from one cleat and share the load. I use our two shortest mooring lines and then join these to one of our longest. This all goes in the rib as I head to shore paying it out as I go. I am a few metres from shore when I run out of line! Back to the boat again and get another line, this is twenty five metres long but with a snubber. The good news is it reaches, the bad news is trying to do a bowline, quite an easy knot, when you are threading a large snubber through the knot is more difficult than you think. Eventually, and after several attempts, I get it done. Maria then suggest that I add fenders to the line so people know it is there. Now I am done and we are sitting pretty – anchor out and lines to shore.

This particular anchorage is famous for having a very good restaurant a five minute walk away. More of that later, but first let’s discuss leaving the rib….. the walk to said restaurant starts at the beach at the north west corner of the bay. That means we have to get the rib out and take it to the beach. Now for some reason we are always keen to lock up our property if we are leaving it and as we look at the beach it is clear there is nowhere for us to leave the rib safely. We come up with a plan using a disused rusty ladder and similar to what we have done with the big yacht, anchoring off this and then tying up to the ladder. I drop the anchor in the small bay, tie the rib up to the ladder and then let the rib settle on its anchor while we start the short walk, or trek, through the undergrowth to the restaurant.

When we arrive the restaurant is a little oasis, overlooking another bay. It’s quite busy with three front row tables all occupied. The owner is really nice and the menu is small but with lots of local favourites. We have an aubergine pie, similar to a meat-free moussaka, followed by a 50cm meat kebab, all washed down with the owners homemade, very tasty red wine. It was fantastic. We are also able to check on Mariadz via the remote anchor app that tells us she is exactly where we left her and the boom mounted security camera that shows the view behind her and the line to shore nice and tight. After the meal, the owner delivered a small bottle of carob grappa, that was very morish! We are a little merry after this for the walk back through the undergrowth. Connie the rib is sitting pretty in the middle of the small bay where the beach is. I pull her in to get on board, release the lock and the mooring line and drift back to the anchor. After retrieving the anchor I can run up to the beach where Maria is waiting with the camera bag and the beach bag.

Now, originally, we had to get Connie because of Maria’s inability to sit sensibly in a standard rib without proper seats. She would fall into these and end up lying face down in the rib for the journey with her bottom in the air. Connie solved this with her four seats which allow Maria to sit comfortably and ride elegantly. Or so we thought…… The bags are on board and Maria starts to climb in and then in slow motion falls backwards out of the rib grabbing onto the rib for just long enough to give her a long lazy fall into the sea. The group of girls on the beach tried, unsuccessfully to avoid laughing as Maria comes up soaking wet and giggling. This group of girls are staying on a yacht anchored about fifty metres from the beach but one is obviously a little tired and wants to go back to her friends, swimming just off the yacht. She asks for a tow! Having dropped her a line we gently set off. She says she is fine and wants to go faster, hmmm, barefoot water skiing perhaps. I give a few more revs and that idea disappears very quickly as she splutters to slow down. We settle back down and drag her slowly back to her boat. Her friends can’t see her and are wondering why I am driving the rib at them, until I turn and they see their friend waving. We drop her off, retrieve our line and zoom off back to Mariadz who is sitting exactly where we left her. But we already knew that.

On our return Maria is very “happy” and wants to dance on the bow, I suspect it is the loud group of boys playing music and laughing on the catamaran next to us. We also have a little swim and as I swim around to check the anchor, Maria decides to dive off the bow, with some encouragement from me… the bow seat is probably 1.5m over the water so maria did have second thoughts but still went for it and did a good dive in.

More drinking, singing and dancing ensued. We even had a small boat come up to us selling local wine, olive all etc which of course Maria decided to buy before, even in her drunk state, she decided to make a spaghetti bolognaise for a snack dinner. It is lovely and eventually we fall into bed quite late.

The next morning we are up quite early, today we will be going to Hvar which we have always pronounced the same as Huzzah in the TV show, The Great! Today we will be going to a small cove at Jagodna in Hvar which has a restaurant that gets rave reviews. It will be our first time picking up a mooring ball this holiday and although the bay is a little open, the wind is not predicted to be high so we should be ok. Maria is having interviews today about a potential new job so we want to get there nice and early so we can get settled. But before we leave another boat comes alongside selling fruit, bread and croissants. It would be rude not to wouldnt it? We have some fresh bread and I have breakfast – maria doesn’t like to eat first thing.

However, before we can leave, it is onto the serious business of the non functioning alternator. Ollie has suggested that it could be the “blue wire” so I go into the engine room and check the wiring from the alternator. There is a blue wire that goes into a little black box and then out again. I check these for fitting and there is a noticeable click when I press on the blue wire in the black box. Could i be that lucky? I haven’t got the heart to get Maria’s hopes up so I remain calm as I fire up the engine…. 20A going into the batteries (a little more excitement), up the revs and 60A going into the batteries – he shoot, he SCORES!!! By the way darling, I have fixed the alternator, said as nonchalantly as possible. Maria is equally happy although we will all know that the real hero here is Ollie.

It’s only 90 minutes for us to cover the nine and a half miles to our destination and so before noon we are coming into the cove. I have booked a table at the restaurant in the evening and they described three black buoys which are all free. It is very picturesque with wooden gazebos with sun beds amongst the rocks and ladders down to the water. On closer inspection these black buoys seem remarkably close to shore for a 54 foot boat but we agree to give it a go.

Maria has great calls with the interviewers who clearly really like her and rate her. By the end of the day they have made her a good offer, reasonable salary but lots of extras that help to make it more palatable. While this is going on, I am distracted by how close we are getting to the rocks ashore. I decide to take advantage of the free buoy and tie our stern to the buoy nearest the restaurant, that will stop us swinging. It is successful at stopping the swinging but the gap between the buoys is about sixty feet and quite quickly the buoy attached to our stern starts banging on the hull, leaving a number of black marks, grhhhh. As Maria finalises her call, the wind and swell have picked up and the exposed nature of this bay is becoming apparent.

At 6pm, an hour before our table is booked, we make a decision. We are not comfortable here and we will find another bay that is protected. Opposite us is the island of Brac and we can see a really nice looking bay, Uvala Smrka, which has an old disused submarine hideout. It is six miles away and we have two and a half hours of daylight remaining so enough time. It will also require us to get a line ashore again, hopefully we will be quicker than the forty minutes and various mis-steps of the first attempt.

We head into the northerly wind and the fair amount of chop that we have already experienced within the bay, dragging the rib behind us. When we arrive, it is a gorgeous little bay with a couple of other yachts, one is anchored in the spot we could have gone and the other is anchored with a mooring line to shore where there are a number of established trees at the water line. We find our spot on the eastern side and I drop the anchor to twenty metres til it touches the sea bed. Maria then goes astern towards our chosen tree paying out more chain as I get the mooring lines and rib ready. Once again we will have lines from each stern cleat that will join a longer line that will go around the tree. Similarly to last time, I am a couple of metres short of line when I get to the tree but also the tide has taken Mariadz to be almost parallel to the shore. I get Maria to pay out more chain and come back towards me. At the same time, I decide to use my super human strength to pull the stern round of the 25 tonne boat. Needless to say my efforts don’t do too much, apart from pull muscles in my shoulders that will hurt for months, but Maria is doing well at getting her closer to shore and at the right angle. I can now tie around the tree and do a pretty bowline knot.

As I return to mariadz, the mooring line is laying in the water doing nothing and the anchor is angled straight down meaning it isn’t pulling us either. I decide to initially shorten the bridle at the stern in the first instance. Which helps a little and then a bring up a little chain and Mariadz straightens up and sits very nicely in her spot. It’s now getting a little late so we will leave exploring the bay until tomorrow morning.

Dinner is a couple of burgers that we were going to do on the barbecue washed down with an Italian red and then, for the first time this holiday, we switch on the TV and watch one of our programmes, a comedy called The Great, huzzah!