Envoy is currently at Cefalonia Island, Greece.
Our last days in Croatia were spent at Sunj on the island of Lopud. Here is one of the few sandy beaches we found in Croatia, and although it’s busy during daytime, we had this idyllic spot to ourselves up to mid-morning and in the evenings.
Taking our RHIB about four miles around the island to the village of Lopud, we entered the tiny harbour, only suitable for boats up to about six metres long.
Lopud’s small harbour with reproduction galleon moored to the outside![]()
.JPG)
Generally there are no spaces for visitors in these harbours, so we just take a vacant berth and keep an eye out for boats returning to the harbour in case we need to move. As we walked back to our RHIB we saw a boat come in the harbour and head to our RHIB. About two minutes later we were right there as an obviously agitated couple were trying to moor their boat. I apologised and said we’d move our boat right away. But this guy and his wife (Europeans but not Croatian) really let fly, and said “you Ingleesh are so inconsiderate”. Diane put him right on that one, but they sure did carry on -understandable if we had not been there to move our boat out of their way, but we were right there. Anyway we managed to keep our cool, smiled, and told them we hoped they enjoyed the rest of their holiday.
Medieval fortified monastery at Lopud
.JPG)
We don’t like to tow our large RHIB for any long distances in case of bad weather, so in preparation for our cruise to Greece we hoisted it back up on our top deck and launched our smaller RHIB (which before getting under way we can lift out of the water aft of Envoy’s transom using our boom winch). It was unusual and great that after 26 days in the water there was no growth at all on the large RHIB’s hull.
Originally we’d planned to stop over in Albania on the way from Croatia to Corfu, but with the Naiad stabilisers disconnected (see Technical), we decided to take advantage of a good weather and cruise 191 miles to Greece’s northernmost Ionian island of Erikoussa in one go. This took us 31.5 hours at an average speed of 6.06 knots, running between 1480 to 1560 rpm, and using 220 litres of fuel equating to1.07 litres/nm.
We cleared out of Croatia at the southern-most port of Cavtat, and headed off in very calm conditions with a light swell on the beam, sufficient to roll Envoy 5-10 degrees each side, occasionally to 15 degrees. This doesn’t sound like much roll, but is sufficient that we had to do some re-stowing (as up to now we’d been using the Naiad hydraulic stabilisers and experiencing negligible roll). We didn’t use the paravane stabilisers initially, as they reduce boat speed by about 10%, but late in the afternoon we deployed them for the overnight part of our trip and our roll reduced significantly to 3-5 degrees each side, occasionally to 10 degrees. We’d not used the paravane stabilisers for so long that we’d forgotten how effective they are.
Envoy’s paravanes in the down position with stabilisers suspended from chains 5 metres below the surface. The downhauls prevent the paravanes from lifting, and the forward guy lines prevent the paravanes from pulling aft
.JPG)
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Here we can see the stabiliser in the water more clearly
Fishing is not allowed in Croatian waters without a license, but as soon as we were offshore we towed a lure for all of the daylight part of the trip without any action at all.
A sparrow-like bird landed on Envoy as we left Croatian waters and stayed aboard until we arrived in Greece, occasionally flying off only to land somewhere different on Envoy. At one stage he even wandered into the main saloon and we had to open a window to let him out. This bird stayed with us most of the way from Croatia to Greece
Our passenger from Croatia to Greece
.JPG)
Unlike out journey north to Croatia, going south was calm, and we never took a single drop of spray over the deck. When we do night passages we make sure our grab bag and emergency gear is in the cockpit for quick access, have plenty of snacks and then have dinner very late – about 2300 as we find this makes the hours of darkness pass more quickly. Using radar we plotted the courses of all vessels within a 12 mile range, and several times needed to alter course to maintain a safe distance. Di had a few hours of sleep, and then took over the helm after dawn to give me a couple of hours rest.
During overnight passages our emergency gear is kept ready in the cockpit
TECHNICAL: During a routine engine room check I noticed grease dripping out of the seal on the Naiad stabilisers’ load adaptor. This load adaptor has pulleys fitted to take the load from the main engine vee-belts, and transfer it to the Vickers hydraulic pump via a central rotating shaft. I didn’t want to take any chances of failure during our overnight cruise to Greece, so disconnected the Naiads completely (by removing the vee belts). We have a new spare load adaptor, but fitting it needs doing in a workshop so we decided to wait until we get to Gouvia Marina.
ENVOY LOG as at 2 September 139 days spend aboard and 1,342 miles cruised for 258 engine hours.
Our last days in Croatia were spent at Sunj on the island of Lopud. Here is one of the few sandy beaches we found in Croatia, and although it’s busy during daytime, we had this idyllic spot to ourselves up to mid-morning and in the evenings.
Taking our RHIB about four miles around the island to the village of Lopud, we entered the tiny harbour, only suitable for boats up to about six metres long.
Lopud’s small harbour with reproduction galleon moored to the outside
.JPG)
Generally there are no spaces for visitors in these harbours, so we just take a vacant berth and keep an eye out for boats returning to the harbour in case we need to move. As we walked back to our RHIB we saw a boat come in the harbour and head to our RHIB. About two minutes later we were right there as an obviously agitated couple were trying to moor their boat. I apologised and said we’d move our boat right away. But this guy and his wife (Europeans but not Croatian) really let fly, and said “you Ingleesh are so inconsiderate”. Diane put him right on that one, but they sure did carry on -understandable if we had not been there to move our boat out of their way, but we were right there. Anyway we managed to keep our cool, smiled, and told them we hoped they enjoyed the rest of their holiday.
Medieval fortified monastery at Lopud
.JPG)
We don’t like to tow our large RHIB for any long distances in case of bad weather, so in preparation for our cruise to Greece we hoisted it back up on our top deck and launched our smaller RHIB (which before getting under way we can lift out of the water aft of Envoy’s transom using our boom winch). It was unusual and great that after 26 days in the water there was no growth at all on the large RHIB’s hull.
Originally we’d planned to stop over in Albania on the way from Croatia to Corfu, but with the Naiad stabilisers disconnected (see Technical), we decided to take advantage of a good weather and cruise 191 miles to Greece’s northernmost Ionian island of Erikoussa in one go. This took us 31.5 hours at an average speed of 6.06 knots, running between 1480 to 1560 rpm, and using 220 litres of fuel equating to1.07 litres/nm.
We cleared out of Croatia at the southern-most port of Cavtat, and headed off in very calm conditions with a light swell on the beam, sufficient to roll Envoy 5-10 degrees each side, occasionally to 15 degrees. This doesn’t sound like much roll, but is sufficient that we had to do some re-stowing (as up to now we’d been using the Naiad hydraulic stabilisers and experiencing negligible roll). We didn’t use the paravane stabilisers initially, as they reduce boat speed by about 10%, but late in the afternoon we deployed them for the overnight part of our trip and our roll reduced significantly to 3-5 degrees each side, occasionally to 10 degrees. We’d not used the paravane stabilisers for so long that we’d forgotten how effective they are.
Envoy’s paravanes in the down position with stabilisers suspended from chains 5 metres below the surface. The downhauls prevent the paravanes from lifting, and the forward guy lines prevent the paravanes from pulling aft
.JPG)
Fishing is not allowed in Croatian waters without a license, but as soon as we were offshore we towed a lure for all of the daylight part of the trip without any action at all.
A sparrow-like bird landed on Envoy as we left Croatian waters and stayed aboard until we arrived in Greece, occasionally flying off only to land somewhere different on Envoy. At one stage he even wandered into the main saloon and we had to open a window to let him out. This bird stayed with us most of the way from Croatia to Greece
Our passenger from Croatia to Greece
.JPG)
Unlike out journey north to Croatia, going south was calm, and we never took a single drop of spray over the deck. When we do night passages we make sure our grab bag and emergency gear is in the cockpit for quick access, have plenty of snacks and then have dinner very late – about 2300 as we find this makes the hours of darkness pass more quickly. Using radar we plotted the courses of all vessels within a 12 mile range, and several times needed to alter course to maintain a safe distance. Di had a few hours of sleep, and then took over the helm after dawn to give me a couple of hours rest.
During overnight passages our emergency gear is kept ready in the cockpit
TECHNICAL: During a routine engine room check I noticed grease dripping out of the seal on the Naiad stabilisers’ load adaptor. This load adaptor has pulleys fitted to take the load from the main engine vee-belts, and transfer it to the Vickers hydraulic pump via a central rotating shaft. I didn’t want to take any chances of failure during our overnight cruise to Greece, so disconnected the Naiads completely (by removing the vee belts). We have a new spare load adaptor, but fitting it needs doing in a workshop so we decided to wait until we get to Gouvia Marina.
ENVOY LOG as at 2 September 139 days spend aboard and 1,342 miles cruised for 258 engine hours.
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