Amante has taken on two new crew. Joan and Paul now are proud owners of Amante shirts and proved hearty, reliable crew! Paul is particularly helpful, with his something like 6’6″ of height, hand when time to change the genoa sheets!

We met them in Fano, where Gabriella darling Botis and Marcello had dinner for all of us in their beautiful home, Palazzo Rotati, where Joan and Paul stayed a night to rest from their European adventure before coming aboard. Gabriella and Sylvio (hello Sylvio- are you reading??) made a beautiful risotto, which Joan said was the best she had ever had, and I must agree, followed by eggplant parmigiana to die for!!

Then the whole- dredge our way out of Fano harbor debacle. Then welcome to Croatia.

Next morning we motored to the town Bazaba on Duki Otak that Marcello told us to go to in the first place and Mauro went into customs and checked the boat and us in.

We went ashore for a walk in the small but charming little island port with its small fishing boats, it’s one church of St. Nicolas, and it’s smiling cruise ship full of English cyclists doing the Croatia bike vacation on a floating bike mover.
We passed some of the cyclists on the walk and saw the rest at the town’s restaurant on the waterfront. The restaurant had the odd but delightful properties of being full of sweaty English speaking active people who were having beers before lunchtime looking over the harbor at Amante at anchor. It looked like a perfect lot to join, but we wanted to get to the next island (Otak) before all the good spots were gone. We went back to a favorite from last year, Otak Molat, the island where we spend a couple of wondrous days with good running, a mile of twisted pair wiring stretched across half the island, and a man in a speedo selling me my first octopus to cook.

We made Aperol Spritz and I opened the whole pecorino I bought in Arezzo to have for our goodbye-to-Italy last appertivo. We ate dinner out. 3 of us got the classic Croatian dish of grilled fish, boiled potatoes, blitva (wild chard), zucchini, and salad and some Malvasia to wash it down for me and Paul and Plavič for Neal and Joan. About as perfect a day as one would want.


We let them off in Zadar. Ciao Joan and Paul!