Day 18. All at sea.

One tricky aspect of planning our trip was the uncertainty about how we were going to get from Croatia to Italy. Plan A was to catch a car ferry. There were, however, numerous problems. We were warned repeatedly that ferries operate less frequently, or maybe not at all, in the off-season. At best, they only sail once or twice a week. We had to plan our trip around a rather old, and slightly dodgy Croatian ferry website and then buy a ticket once we arrived on the ground. We did have a plan B (drive right around the top of the Adriatic Sea from Croatia to Central Italy) but that would have been a very long drive.

In the end, everything went perfectly to plan. We were able to secure tickets for ourselves, and the car, on the date we wanted, once we arrived in Europe. We arrived at the ferry port with two hours to spare, ready to drive onto the Marko Polo a Jadrolinija Ferry, leaving at 8pm. We expected the ship to be ‘a roll on/roll off’ ferry.  In fact it was a ‘back on/drive off’ ferry. We waited at the front of the car line for ninety minutes and watched as about twenty full sized semi-trailers backed into the ship –with only centimetres of room at the top and sides. We were full of admiration for the backing skills of the drivers. Finally our turn came and with lots of hand movements and shouting in Croatian from the traffic wardens, Richard backed the little brown frog (Citroen C4) between a truck and a bulkhead. The car was finally secured safely into the big white ship.

The ship was built in 1973 and weighed in at 10154 gross tons – it was 128 m long with a breadth of 19.6m. The sea was, by Richard’s estimate, sea state 1-2 (smooth wavelets 0.1-0.5 metres) and the ride was very smooth. We enjoyed a small cabin, a hearty dinner, a free breakfast and all in all a very pleasant trip. With a good night’s sleep, the eleven-hour voyage from Split (Croatia) to Ancona (Italy) was over in a flash and we are now ready to continue the rest of our adventure, basically doing a loop around the boot (ie Italy).  

Wendy spent several anxious years supporting her sea going children when they served with OM Ships. She continues to support Richard and son Peter in their maritime careers. Wendy’s maiden overnight voyage indicates her sea legs are reliable and all bodes well for future adventures at sea.