Sunday, 22^nd May, 11; Ist

This morning is a water-sports time; our guests both want to try waterskiing but the 40 HP engine on our small tender isn’t sufficiently powerful to pull an adult male of 70 kilos or more. Dean, who has been up on water-skis before, managed to get up for a while but without much finesse. Derek, who has skied all his life, performed elegantly on one ski. I meanwhile, dear reader, am chained to my computer writing this blog.

After lunch, we head further north towards Losinj and its neighbouring island of Susak. This island has a unique geology; it is made of limestone like all the islands around but covered with an overlay of between 10 and 20 meters of sand. No one has explained this extraordinary phenomenon satisfactorily but the best guess is that before the last glaciation, the Po valley delta came this far south and provided the sandy sediment for the capping layer of this island.

There is a single sandy beach where, in the past, turtles have nested. A local tells us that, while they are seen swimming close to the island, none have nested there for years; another sad tale of man’s unthinking destructiveness.

We try to anchor but are prevented from doing so by a local patrol boat. We are directed to some newly laid mooring buoys nearby but find that they have been laid down with insufficient slack on the line to be useable. We try to move away but the tight lines foul our bottom. After we are clear, Captain Tim will have nothing further to do with Susak so we head east for Mali Losinj.

During all this carry-on, I attempt to board the tender when the neoprene tube is wet; I slip and hurt the toes on my left foot. This adds my small injury to Tim’s cut hand, Bruce’s stubbed toe and then another minor injury. Both our guests attempt the Kalani challenge, a swim to the anchor and then a climb up onto the foredeck up the anchor chain. Only heroes are able to complete this test of strength and agility. To our surprise both Dean and Ben succeed but at the costs of a nasty looking graze to Dean’s shin.

Monday, May 23, 2011; Losinj and then Rab.

Tim and I have our usual after-breakfast discussion. The weather forecast is for a strong bora wind to come-up in the late afternoon. Tim, ever cautious, wants to leave soon after lunch so as to be in Rab well before the forecast storm hits.

I have arranged to see the museum in this delightful waterside town. It is one of the largest urban communities on an offshore island but, although quite sizeable, the more unsightly elements are tucked around a corner out of sight. There is a ship repair facility based on a floating dock and a number of larger commercial fishing boats. The main town is at the end of a deep bay with pretty pastel coloured waterside buildings most of which are a hundred years old or even older.

The lady I have been told to contact at the museum does not appear to have heard of us. Ten minutes later, she calls back to tell us she will be happy to meet us and show us the museum. Zrinka Ettinger is a marine archeologist in charge of the small museum in the neighbouring older town of Malo Losinj.

She meets us in the main open space by the inner harbour. She is young, dark and attractive, wears her hair short and uses little make-up. She has khaki bell-bottomed trousers and a simple top undone to emphasize her slim neck. She wins us all over in no time with her winsome smile and articulate English. For some reason Timot seems particularly impressed.

We are here to see a remarkable local find, an Apoximenos or classical statue of an athlete cleaning himself after exercise. The Greek, bronze from the second century BC is life-size. The statue was discovered in 1997 by a Belgian tourist at a depth of about 40 mtrs lying in sand wedged between two rocks. He tried to hide the find but was unable to raise the statue from such a great depth. The news of the find leaked and, fortunately, in 2005, the authorities were able to raise it from its long dormant sleep under the sea. Very few Greek bronzes are extant as the metal was usually recycled in antiquity; this is one of a select handful from that already small number that is almost entire. The piece is now in Zagreb having been beautifully and expertly restored and conserved. We are only able to see life-sized photographs and a well-designed audio-visual display.

Words do not often fail me but there is no superlative that can do justice to this masterpiece. It is finely and exquisitely modeled clearly from life, the body is beautifully toned and proportioned, the musculature well rendered. But the face is ethereal, the long curly hair is brushed back as if by the athlete’s own hand; the mouth is sensitive and the eyes expressive. So handsome is this “ephebe” that he must have been a hero and probably the admired love object of a powerful older man, maybe the one who commissioned the work? The figure is in the process of using a “strigil” or scraper that sadly has not survived, to remove the oil dust and dirt from his smooth skin after a wrestling bout in the “palaestra” or gymnasium. As a gym owner, I am entranced by this idea. I can’t help feeling that this is a superior and more sensual way to get clean than our prosaic soap and shower. It must have left the skin feeling wonderfully soft and silky. Sometimes athletes would perform this grooming service for each other….. I think I had better stop here before I get too carried away.

We took up the anchor and were underway in the early afternoon on passage for Rab. This necessitated a diversion south again to round the southern tip of Losinj before venturing northeast to Rab. As we crossed, about two hours into the passage, the sky darkened and a storm threatened but never materialized. We have been lucky with the wind. It is unusual to go this long without a single storm or strong bora wind, especially so early in the year. The temperature of the air is still cool in the early part of the day but the sun is now strong and persistent making walking around at midday tiring and hot. I now find I am always dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. My trusty battered panama does good service but will, I fear, soon need replacing.

We arrive at Rab on a perfect cloudless evening. The exquisite fortified town and its famous four bell-towers are bathed in golden evening light. Kalani passes in front of the scene while Timot shoots it from the tender; one could not hope for a more evocative picture – he is delighted and so are we. I have seen many beautiful Mediterranean coastal towns perched on rocky islets, guarding a safe anchorage; so many that I am spoiled and a sense of ennui has replaced my former rapture but not here; the light is so perfect and the town such a gem. The Venetian walls are almost ochre in this light, the towers rise in silent testimony to the awe their ancestors felt for the unknown and bells peel out the hours. On close approach, the beauty of the Venetian balconies and fenestration is apparent; the houses that lie atop the walls are revealed in all their intricately carved detail.

Tuesday, 24^th May, 11; Rab

After a late breakfast, we venture into town to meet Vanja Sersic from the town hall. His English is rudimentary so we take Viktor along to translate. The process is long as we are clearly not expected although Vanja does recall having received a phone call about us a week or so ago. He is friendly but vague and its clear he is not available or equipped to show us around. It is now nearly 11:00 am and I am getting hot and frustrated, I want to start filming. We are finally invited to cross the main square and go to the tourist office where Luka Percinic will meet us. At last, we meet our guide. He is young and enthusiastic and speaks good English. Luka talks to us as we walk around this perfect, small, fortified town. He tells us everything, perhaps a few too many facts; we are looking for good shots and great stories. There is no shortage of good shots but stories are harder to discern. He is patient while we go about the repetitive and slow process of filming.

On the hill overlooking the sea we come to the first of two nunneries, a Franciscan convent with only two nuns still in residence. The younger of the two shows us into the small chapel but will neither allow us into the convent nor is she willing to speak to camera herself. The convent was founded in 16^th C during the Venetian period for the daughters of local aristocratic families, presumably Venetian. This struck me as odd given that St Francis is almost a patron saint of the poor and dispossessed. But then the Catholic Church is full of such contradictions, it is hierarchical, its highest princes flout wealth and pomp and yet Christianity is founded on principles of simplicity and humility. To Roman Catholics the clergy and the flock are both separate and unequal. To become a Knight of the Catholic Sovereign order of Malta, a candidate had to show sixteen quarterings that is to say armigerous ancestors on all sides going back to their great, great grandparents – I’m sure god was happy to know his knights weren’t plebs.

The second convent lies a few hundred meters from the first. This one is Benedictine and a closed house. Temptingly, we hear beautiful female voices raised in a melodious descant coming from within but we are not permitted to enter. I cannot help questioning the purpose of such an order of hermits, how do they serve either the world or themselves by such frugality and denial? We are told that this house was founded about a hundred years after the Franciscan one, but for the daughters of the common people; divisions of race and class have never been a stranger to Christianity despite its teaching that we are all one before god.

We decide to walk up to the top of the tallest of the four bell towers. By the time we get there the clock tells us it is about five minutes to midday. We stand on the narrow walkway that goes around the tower while the mighty bell strikes the noon hour. When I hear the knell of a bell tolling at home, I think back to my schooldays when bells meant a summons to class or to prayer. Bells in the Mediterranean have a different timbre and speak of a leisured life that tells one it is time for lunch or time for cocktails at a café in the square.

Timot films Kalani as she steams around the city and into the outer harbour. Below the bell tower we can see into the walled kitchen garden of the nunnery; one of the sisters is watering a row of beans. She bends over in her blue habit and white headdress using an old-fashioned painted metal watering can; no one has told her that it is pointless to water in the heat of the midday sun. Somehow, her labours seem timeless and pleasing even if fruitless.

Derek and I descend the tower steps back into the narrow alley and walk toward the Cathedral with its 12^th C Romanesque façade. Narrow, rounded arches are inset into a wall of banded stone in pink and red; the façade has been recently renovated and the work has been beautifully realized. I have only one criticism that I voice to Luka. The new pointing between the stones here and everywhere else in Croatia is too harsh. The mortar used has too high a percentage of cement that renders it inert whereas a thinner mix would allow plants and mosses to colonize the stonework or at least the interstices, softening and mellowing the effect over time.

By now it is well past lunchtime and the restaurant that Luka has chosen for us has finished serving but our resourceful guide finds another that is prepared to remain open as late as 2 pm. He leads us back to the town center and down a small alleyway to a touristy restaurant. We are the only diners. I order calves liver. It is served with white rice and no vegetables. The rich sauce is thick with onion and the liver is cut into small pieces and overcooked, never the less I am grateful for an edible meal and a cold drink. The others choose tuna salad that, just as I predict, is a mound of tinned tuna atop some chopped iceberg lettuce garnished with rings of cucumber and wedges of tasteless under-ripe tomato. A few beers help the meal go down. Croatia is beautiful beyond compare but has some catching-up to do when it comes to gastronomy.

After lunch, we summon Viktor and the tender to take us back to the boat for a siesta.