The wind didn’t seem to be as frisk as the forecast, especially not in the shelter of Uvala Lopud. So we ate breakfast and weighed anchor at 8.30.

When we were out of the bay, a lovely 12-15 knots of breeze hit us on the nose. We started tacking towards Dubrovnik. Just as we were by the small island of Daksa outside the port of Gruz, we were hit by the first shower. It was time to take the sails down anyway, since the wind would not have helped us along the narrow bay to the ACI Marina Dubrovnik.

I called the marina on the VHF channel specified, and asked for a berth. Somehow the guy at the other end didn’t catch my wish for two nights, and when we arrived at the berth, we were instructed to go to another pier. Quite lucky, in fact. The berth we were first given was in the tightest spot I’ve ever seen.

The second place was moderately better. It didn’t have boats on each side and the space between the boats to the next pier was about one of our boatlenghts. The 40+ ft yachts manoeuvring in and out had to do some fancy engine work to avoid colliding. I reversed our 38 ft Hanse in quite a handsome move in its berth.

There was just one little snag. We already had the mooring line on and I was in forward so as to tighten the aft lines when the engine cut off. We had snagged one of the mooring lines around our prop. GREAT!

Luckily the diver was doing a job just a couple of boats away. The original mooring line we were given was the wrong one and once we were given a new one, the boat straightened in its place. When the diver came up from checking the prop, he said he had to be back with tools to remove the prop to get the line off. In his words “it’s totally f….d up!”

Well, wasn’t that a great arrival in a tight parking space. Worse than driving around a parking lot in a shopping mall at Christmas. He said he’d be back later. Relieved as I was, I didn’t ask when.

We took our showers and ate lunch. As the skipper, all I could do was wait. The beautiful sunny old town of Dubrovnik just had to wait. The boys headed off to town while I walked the piers trying to find the diver. At around four, Jaana finally saw him and I ran off. Since he had plenty of boats to survey and we’d be staying two nights, we made a date for the next morning. Yes! Jaana and I could head for town.