Cruising The Med - Sandy and Rob's Excellent Adventure: Vis to Bisevo - The Blue Cave - Sail to Hvar and the Pakleni Otoci (Islands)

Tuesday July 16 was another very full day.

We left our anchorage in Vis early filling up first with diesel and heading up the coast to an island called Bisevo.

The sea state was confused as the wind was coming from a different direction than the waves. This created square shaped waves. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is the perfect situation for sea sickness.

Fortunately, we only had to endure this for a couple of hours and Mackenzie took some meds I had on board so we survived without getting ill.

We arrived at Bisevo at the Blue Cave at around 11:30 am which is the perfect time when the sunlight lights up the cave in amazing colours of blue.

It was quite different that Odysseus' Cave as it did not open to the sky. It was also different as the locals stop you at the entrance and charge 40 Kuna each to enter. That's about $5 each. They also post signs prohibiting swimming and photos in the cave.

You see by the photos below we did not pay attention to the 'no photos' sign. Neither did the other tourists so we weren't alone.

The Blue Cave has been known by the local fishermen since ancient times. In 1884, a Baron discovered it for the rest of the world. (Wonder what he charged to get in?)

The cave is 24 metres long and 12 metres wide. The entrance is very small and we just fit in our dinghy. It is 1.5 metres high and 2.5 metres wide. Once through "the tunnel" we opened up into the cave itself which is up to 15 metres high.

It was definitely worth the trouble getting here as the colours leave you breathless as does the cave itself. It is very peaceful and so we stayed long enough for other tourists to leave so we could really appreciate it.

We left the Blue Cave and headed down the sea side (west) of Vis to avoid the awful seas. It was calm and there was a light breeze so we motor sailed down wind and enjoyed a really attractive coastline and some greek salad and pizza for lunch.

Once at the bottom of Vis, we turned the corner and the weather had completely changed. No more waves and a lovely 8 knot breeze so rather than anchor again at Vis, we decided to head East toward Hvar and the Pakleni Islands.

We sailed directly to Hvar Harbour to check it out. Hvar Harbour is a zoo for lack of a better description. Full of anchored boats, ferries, zodiacs, fishermen, and many boats constantly arriving jockeying for a position to anchor.

We read about this in our pilot book and so we took a look at the harbour and headed back to the Pakleni Islands just across the way. We started by looking at Jerolim.

We wondered why there were few boats anchored in what appeared to be a lovely cove. As we approached the cove, we realized why few boats chose this spot. Jerolim is a "naturist" island. We saw many nude bathers and decided it was not our cup of tea.

We headed around Jerolim to the next island over and found a fabulous anchorage at Otok Markinovac called Uvala Stipanska. Very quiet, calm and beautiful clear jewel toned water. There was a very nice looking beach bar/resort tucked in the corner.

Anchored at the head of the bay, we chose to enjoy a quiet dinner on the boat having sailed such long distances today.

It was another wonderful day.

Our plan was to return to Hvar Harbour in the morning for the chance to go ashore and see the local sights.

The very small entrance to the Blue Cave at Bisevo