Croatia

[LeeB]

Here are a few pictures from one of the islands off the coast of Croatia. First a couple of pics of the yard itself.









And a couple of shots of the dock side.






I'll make another post so it won't be too big.

[LeeB]

This yard is located on an inlet on the west side of the island. The name of the place is Lamjana Shipyard. You can find it on Google Earth. Here are a couple views out of the harbor.







In the back ground you can see the outer island just barely. The sun was wrong for the shot. Also a fishing boat coming in. Around to the right of the hill in the second picture is a big catch pen where they hold live tuna that is caght elsewhere and trundled back in nets to keep them alive. They bring in several million dollars worth at a time.





You can see the other island a little better in this shot. More pics coming.

[LeeB]

I made the trek into town this morning, about 2 1/2 miles and up hill.

Looking back down toward the yard. Only just getting started up the hill.




About half way up, maybe 3/4 mile in to it and still looking back behind me.




A coupe shots off to the side of the road and some of the local flora.










The last shot is of a drystack wall that are everywhere. Miles and miles of them

[LeeB]

Finally to the top of the hill and almost to the other side of the island. The built up area on the other side is the mainland.




Down the other side I go.



Looking off to the north east.



Still trudging along. I don't think I get it up to 40kph. Fat boy starting to get tired.

[LeeB]

And now a few scenes from in the town. I don't know the name and can't say it anyway. I think it's Preko




Some more shots of town.








The ferry to the mainland

[LeeB]

 10:00am, time to go back. I have to get some sleep before work this evening.




A few more shots of the local flora. I haven't a clue what they are except the last one and finally one shot of another dry stack wall.










About a five mile round trip and it was uphill both ways. Coming back up the hill from town about did me in. Sure was glad when I crested the top and started back down. I'll be going off the rig tommorow to go stay in a nother little town nearby while the living quarters are renovated. I'll try to get more pics if I can find a camera. These were taken with the rig camera and the battery is dead. The charge cord has gotten packed away nad is not to be found. Kind of a long winded post, but I hope you all enjoy it.

[Fla._Deadheader]

I did.  8)  Thanks for posting, Lee.  Guess you are done on the last job, then ???

[Magicman]

Thanks for showing me somewhere that I'll never see....

[DanG]

Fantastic Lee, just simply fantastic!   I think you're gonna like that place a lot better than BFE.  So how long will y'all be in port?

[WH_Conley]

I know what you mean about up hill both ways. Like that when I went to school. :D

[LeeB]

I'll be here till Monday next week. The rig will be here for about 3 - 4 months undergoing repairs and upgrades. Not sure if I'll get to stay with it or not. The guy who will be my immidiate supervisor is trying to arrange for me to stay with the rig. Long story short, only a few of the original crew from before will still be a part of the new crew. After the shipyard project the rig will go to work off the east coast of Itally. I really do hope I get to stay because the alternative is likely to be sitting home scratching my unemployed butt. They keep telling us that they're gonna find places for us but I've already seen quite a few get layed off.

[Paul_H]

Great post Lee!

[SwampDonkey]

Looking good Lee. Your a regular Rick Steeves. He did a full video tour on Croatia and the buildings all look just like your photos.  ;)

[LeeB]

A few more pics of Croatia. The first one is looking across the harbor of the little town where we are staying in the hotel. Early morning and just getting back from a night's work




The Sun peaking through the clouds.



Enjoying a little homemade wine with some of the crew before heading down to eat. They also make a local version of moonshine called graapa that will take your head off if you aren't careful.




Down the hill to the resteraunt.



A few shots of some of the bungalos we are staying in.






They tell me the wind is quite fierce here in the winter. The trees would seem to say so. There isn't a staight one to be found.

[LeeB]

After eating a little walk around town and I did mean a little walk. Not much to it. Only about 500 full time residents.

Boats in the harbor.






Coming into the town square.




Local watering hole on the square.




News stand. Nothing at all available in english.



Farmers market. Nothing happening right now. There is someone ther selling earlyer in the morning. 



Somebody has a stack of boardds air drying. I didn't get close enough to see what it was. Didn't want to trespass.



Back to the watering hole. Walking makes you thirsty.



Time to go back. Too much watering hole makes you wobbly.

[LeeB]

 Back up the hill to the room. Funny, I don,t remeber it being as far down as it is back up.





Top of the hill and my building is in sight.





Simple room but comfortable. A little warm though, no A.C. I brought a fan off the rig.





It has a nice view off the balcony



Evening comes and time to go back to work.




https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10046/2458/hotel_078.jpg [/img]

Waiting with the crew for the bus that takes us to work.

[Norm]

What a great tour Lee, thanks!

You say your rig is in the yard, what are you guys doing while it's being worked on?

[Bro. Noble]

Thanks for the great pictures

[LeeB]

What a great tour Lee, thanks!

You say your rig is in the yard, what are you guys doing while it's being worked on?

We are a part of the work team. Grunt labor and safety watchdogs mostly and the equipment still has to be cared for and maintained. The third party workers vary rarely come up to our safety standards so we have to keep them in line.

[DanG]

I'm sure enjoying the tour!  As was said, Rick Steves ain't got nuttin on our LeeB! 8) 8)

How about some pics of the rig? ;D

[beenthere]

Enjoying the pics too.

Seems to be a real absence of people and cars. Very clean and refreshing look to everything, but wonder where the money comes from.  Tourists? Vacationers?   You did say only 500 people live there full time.  Sure seems low for the looks of things. Impressive, and looks like a place to visit. 

[LeeB]

Not many cars here and the place is a summer tourist place. Not a whole lot of people here after the season is over. It is wonderfully clean and the people thaat live here seem to take real pride in keeping up thier gardens. I haven't seen any lawns so to speak, every patch of dirt around the homes is cultivated with vegetables, flowers or grape vines. I was talking to a fellow the same day I took the last group of pictures about how I could easily find myself living here, maybe about 40 - 50 acres to play on and a small house. He asked me if I had $2MM to pay out for that. There went that dream out the window. He also said that it wasn't very likely to get anyone to sell. The land has been handed down over a multitude of generations and even though they are not wealthy people they would rather live poor and keep thier properties. I don't know what the mainland is like where most of the population is. Maybe I'll get a chance to see a little of itwhen I head home next week.

[SwampDonkey]

That's interesting Lee, now I know why these folks here in some NA cities are talking about backyard and roof top gardening . Only thing is, I bet the Croatians are better back yard gardeners because the guy in NY city can just go buy what he wants and by-pass the "Green theme".  ;D All we see is the TV promos.

[beenthere]

..or that the Croatians have much better weather/climate than NY City. 

[LeeB]

On the outer islands they do. Inland it's about the same.

[SwampDonkey]

I would suggest the Croatians are likely more dependent on a good garden. Climate doesn't really enter into the argument until we get into what crops can be grown and what can't. Your not going to try to grow bananas on your open deck in NYC in January. :D

[LeeB]

Well, it looks like the Croatia stint has finally come to an end. Work done and time for the rig to go to Italy. Doesn't look like I will get to make the move with it. I'll be trransfered back to the Middle East to work in Saudi. Not at all looking forward to that but at least I will be working still. I have a few more pics from Croatia and will get htem posted soon. All good things must end I suppose. Doesn't mean I have to like it. >:(

[firefighter ontheside]

 @LeeB I know this post is old, but I'm planning a trip to Croatia maybe this year, if things go right with the world.  My great grandparents came from there around 1915.  I figured it was worth a shot to see if anyone had ever posted about Croatia on FF.  Love the pictures.

[LeeB]

Beautiful country and people. Great food and wine. A little expensive. I loved it there and had seriously considered moving there but couldn't afford as much land as I wanted. What area are you going to?

[firefighter ontheside]

We will likely fly into Dubrovnik and then drive north visiting places like Split.  I have a friend of the same last name who lives in a coast town called Opatija in the north.  She found me on FB several years ago.  I have no idea if we are related, but I plan to meet her in person.  Then we will head into the north central area around Karlovac where my family came from.  I have a bad feeling that this will not be able to happen in 2021, but maybe.  I get the idea that the people in Croatia are better at controlling the spread, but I don't think their access to vaccine is going to be as speedy as here in the US.

[LeeB]

Looks like there was a pretty good earthquake there today

[firefighter ontheside]

Looks like there was a pretty good earthquake there today

Yeah, lots of damage, especially to very old buildings.  I messaged my friend.  She lives about 180 miles from the epicenter and said it was very scary, but not terrible by her.  Her family though is only about 30 miles from the epicenter.  She said they are all safe, but are worried about more quakes.  They had one yesterday that was 5.4.  Now they don't know if there will be a bigger one.  This one was 6.4, which is ten times worse than 5.4

[firefighter ontheside]

Well, 2021 is not gonna happen.  Lets hope for 22.

[kantuckid]

Keep me posted when you go to Croatia!  
I've had a fly & ride Balkans trip on my bucket list for some time now. I lean toward Romania as the bike or scooter rental is much less than Croatia, plus the mtn passes there are a riders mecca but I'll be riding every country in the entire area if we get past this covid mess while I'm still riding-and travelling.
The coastal areas of Croatia offer palm trees such but when riding I lean toward mtns and more rural areas. 
We are now planning for domestic trips later this summer-CO in Sept and AZ/NM in winter. Maybe 2022 is the years to go places? 

Travel tidbit: My son rented a car for business this week in Charleston, WV and costs are similar to air travel right now.   

[firefighter ontheside]

 @kantuckid I will let you know.  We will definitely not be going before my 10 year old son can get vaccinated and I hear that things are much improved in Croatia.  I messaged my friend over there last week and she said access to vaccine is still not very good.  I imagine that will change in the next 6 months.  There is a very slight chance that I am related to my friend.  She found me on Facebook because we have the same last name.  My great grandparents left Croatia somewhere around 1915 due to tensions leading up to WW1.  My other great grandparents left Ukraine about the same time for the same reasons.
I think you will want to ride by the Plitvice Lakes.  I think I heard that the rental car places can't get any new cars like they normally would and that may have to do with the shortage of rental cars.

[kantuckid]

In the USA rental cars cost similar to an air tic right now! Our son who studied in Hungary visited Croatia back then on his weekends train travels all over. He only was at the coast. 
When the timing seems right, I'll ride not drive and I suspect the motorcycles & scooters were not sold off as affects the rental cars? 
For now the possibility of being stranded somewhere in a very expensive manner looms on my foreign travel conscience. 

[firefighter ontheside]

I chatted with my friend in Croatia today.  As here, she said things are not going well there.  I'm still hoping for next year, but chances of that seem to be dwindling.  She said that a lot of her friends have lost their jobs recently due to covid and I assume reduction in tourism.  She lives near the coast and I'm sure her job is also partly dependent on tourism.  

[kantuckid]

We are thinking Alaska as our next out of the lower 48 trip. Unless your a bit off yer rocker, no place else seems logical for the seeable future? I've considered Mexico but it's got issues too. I know MC riders who still go but it's not for me for now. The EU is a pure crap shoot that could throw you into a quarantine hotel, not to mention the airports that have become worse than the mess they already were. 
Balkans are not a place to be lately and one of the worlds hot spots. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Still, I think I would feel safer in Croatia than in Mexico.  

[kantuckid]

You can join that crowd as you wish. 
 Prior to covid it was quite some topic, now made more complicated by covid not because Mexico's any worse than once was the case for physical danger. 
On Adv.com , my motorcycle forum, there's a thread in Trip Planning, North America, called "Is Mexico Safe". That thread currently has 4,198,271 posts. it's a great info source for people seeking the real Mexico, not the Cancun big box hotel version.  The typical person therein not only has Mexico travel experience, the title is an inside joke of sorts as we simply don't feel that way, as you suggest. Foreign travel away from tourist enclaves asks for a certain amount of savy and that's also true for Mexico, but IMO, no more so than many other locations. 
My cousin's daughter & hubby just got back from a Jamaica trip to an all-inclusive. They were taken for a couple hours off property for an escorted shopping trip-what I'll call a canned trip from the get go. I don't question that they had a great time but fact is they didn't see Jamaica. I'll add that a few spots in Jamaica are flat out dangerous-mostly in the Kinston ghetto/gang areas. 
I am a savy traveler, and don't mind saying so and not wearing rose colored glasses either. Mexico as I've enjoyed it has not once been a scary place. My main exception might be a certain few roads where it got dicey with blind passing in mtns and such. Do I hang out in the areas that the narcos do, probably not. Neither do I get drunk and wander a dark street in a city after the bar closes. But I've been in a bunch of places there, never a bad moment, ever. Our state dept seems to do travel advisories before covid with as much skill and knowledge as during covid and how they've handled things-thats my take. 
I'm a poster boy for Mexico as it's a favorite place of ours. Beautiful country, and people, but not a perfect place of course. But neither are the Balkans.
The more common argument is to compare an American city what with much danger to most of Mexico which has none, but thats not logical even in my mind set. My wife's cousin lives in Chicago and tells his 92 yr old Dad he never sees any crime. Guess why-he lives in a high rise luxury apartment. 
Back to the Balkans, my hopefully soon destination... :D 

[firefighter ontheside]

I hear what your're saying and I believe that you have much more experience than I do in all areas of travel.  St Louis is known to be an unsafe city, but if you don't go to the unsafe areas, then you won't be the victim of crime.  I went to Jamaica for one day.  We went on a little excursion into the mountain areas and rafted on a river.  That seemed safe and fun.  Walking around Kingston by ourselves did not seem safe.

[kantuckid]

We did a bamboo raft trip in 1990 with our kids- from the jungle into a bay-took about 4-5 hours. We also dived off the waterfall where Tom Cruise was seen in Cocktails flick which was also our lodging spot-same bar, etc.. It's in Port San Antonio and was once a fancy place where Clark Gable and Liz taylor hung out-it was being redone and interesting place. The guys poling the raft spoke to each other in creole but I know people well enough to have heard that they didn't like us at all. Jamaica is like that- really friendly or they hate gringos. It's real and we've discussed it with natives there a good deal. Sad factoid really. Our last trip was wife & I only-two weeks in three places and a rental car trip. Jamaican drivers are literally insane. They pass anywhere, at crazy speeds and honk while passing. The island also holds my personal pothole record-we went around one that was maybe 3-4' deep x same dia. and had weeds and small trees growing in it. Their fresh markets are really neat. 
  In Mexico I've talked with many who have worked the cruise lines and they tend to like USA gringos more than Euro gringos who they say tend toward what I'll call uppity. Fact is there's hardly a Mexican who doesn't have a close connection to the USA-either their uncle lives here or they did. Michoacan is listed as one of the more dangerous states-it's also my favorite of them all. A friend there who lives in Morelia, a hugely interesting and historic city, he's indigenous, a lawyer who grew up dirt poor and wifes and RN. 35 miles from him is my favorite small town-Patzcuaro, MX, his home town. He drives over there weekly to do pro bono work as he says the landlords and cops take advantage of the poor so he's the balance for them. I asked him whaile eating dinner if he'd ever seen or known a narco since it's a sate with many of them. his answer was that in his high end neighborhood (he had built his home and the one next door that was empty and for sale which was how he made his money & paid for his home) there was this family that never seemed to need to leave for work like most people who get up early and drive to a job. He added that they owned fancy horses and trailered them around so he had them figured as narcos, but he said most of them "lived down in the deep valley" away from others and "we just stay away". 
In the Balkans Romania is one of the mtn countries I yearn to ride in-the two mtn passes there are famously neat. It's also had a rep for being dangerous in the past but has changed some over the times and mostly a good visit. Our son who went to U of Budapest said the only place he's ever been scared for his life was on a Romanian train ride. Place is the key to safe travel Mexico or whatever. My DIL went to Cancun last year and her solution is a big box hotel which also means she's never come close to the real place. Honestly it's more like Mexico in Texas than her hotel. In Cancun, if need be, we stay in a business class hotel downtown where few tourists are seen. Then we leave as soon as we can for real Mexico. Mahuajual is a funny place. Before they built the 2 mile long cruise ship pier with Dominos Pizza, etc., etc., etc., it was a sleepy place with few tourist as it's ~ 4-5 hour drive from Cancun/Play del Carmen. Now it converts when a ship comes in then reverts back when they leave. 
I'm yearning to travel now but seems stupid even when retired? I don't want to drop $2-4,000 quarantined in a hotel overseas. Alaska is likely our next trip for that reason. We'll very likely do the AK Marine Highway system from WA to SE AK then do a wilderness trip again while still young enough to fly-in, fish, etc.. The ferry is a neat experience, sleep on deck, eat the cafeteria and watch the whales. You get off where you want, stay long as you want then get back on, etc.. Life is short, covid is messing with our bucket list bigtime, but glad to be around to talk about it. 

[kantuckid]

I hear what your're saying and I believe that you have much more experience than I do in all areas of travel.  St Louis is known to be an unsafe city, but if you don't go to the unsafe areas, then you won't be the victim of crime.  I went to Jamaica for one day.  We went on a little excursion into the mountain areas and rafted on a river.  That seemed safe and fun.  Walking around Kingston by ourselves did not seem safe.

Before I-64 was built, the connection from US-50 required circulating through all of E STL. It was not a place to run out of gas then or now. We did that trip from 1971 when we married to lately when it's streamlined, of course and avoids the ghetto stuff.  
 On an army pass, ala 1964 in STL we were getting drunk in a Polish bar for free as they bought all the beer. When we were ready to wallow out of there, they said we'd best take a cab, not walk to our hobo hotel that cost like $3-4 a nite. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Talking about going to Croatia again.  We may go next spring at the earliest.  We just watched Rick Steves travel show about his trip to Croatia.  His trip is pretty much what we would do.  Start out in Dubrovnik and then drive north stopping in Split, Plitvice Lakes, area of Zagreb which is where my family came from and then back to the coast around Rijeka where I have a friend of the same last name.  I do not know if we are related, but maybe.  We've been trying to figure that out for years, but my Great grandparents left there around 1915.

Edit... @kantuckid  airplane tickets have been purchased for late May of 2023.  We have reserved our rooms in Dubrovnik.  Working on other rooms, but wanted to get Dubrovnik taken care of.  They fill up faster than everywhere else.

[kantuckid]

The current issue of Smithsonian has an article about religious "icon" (shortened as cannot spell) art from Ukranian churches. The thing I gained most from the article is the origins of the Ukrainian heritage as it comes from a fairly large group of countries around and within Ukraine.
I am still liking a Romania centered trip that includes Croatia and more but for now too many projects.
Thinking back to AZ this winter as FL has become impossible in state parks. Also an Airbnb/VROB Baja trip to Sea of Cortez and Pacific coast.
Goodluck on air tics!  

[firefighter ontheside]

Yes, my other great grandparents came from Ukraine in about 1914.  US census records from different years listed where they came from as either Galicia(which now includes part of Poland) or even Austria.  They were not from Austria, but someone had recorded Austria where it should have said Austria-Hungary which Ukraine was part of at that time.  So, you could say that all of my great grandparents on my dad's side came from Austria-Hungary even though they were Croatians and Ukrainians.  I've also learned recently that a Croatian is someone who is from the country of Croatia, but a Croat is an ethnic Croatian who are predominantly Catholic.

I think the round trip tickets were about $1000 each.  Not as high as I expected considering the price of fuel.  We fly from St Louis to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to Croatia.  We have a layover in Frankfurt on the way there that is 8 hours.  It sounds terrible, but I think it is gonna be great, because we can actually leave the airport and see a little of Frankfurt.  I've never been to Germany and I have German heritage from my mom's side way back and I speak some German from taking it in Highschool and college.

[firefighter ontheside]

We arrive in Croatia on May 26.  Originally our plan was to fly home on June 4, but our flight from Zagreb to Frankfurt has been cancelled.  Our choices were to choose different flights and have more layovers or to stay 3 more nights in Croatia and fly home on the 7th.  3 more nights it is, so our vacation just got extended.