- Sailing Croatia tips
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by Ultra Sailing Team
If the weather conditions allow you, anchoring is one of the best ways to spend time at the sea. Whether you just stop for a short swimming or spend the night on anchor. There are many bays in Croatia where you can drop the anchor for the night, some of them are quite popular (which means they can be quite full in the high season) among the locals and for short excursions, others are not so known.
The advantage of the anchoring in bays is that most of the anchorages are free of charge, except if the bay is under concession and mooring buoys are there, but still mooring buoy is still quite cheaper than a marina or harbor. Also comparing to the harbor or marina, while on anchor you can swim all day, enjoy your water toys like SUP or cruising around with the dinghy, maybe try to catch some fish for the dinner. Otherwise, most of the popular bays have a restaurant or nearby to reach by your dinghy, so you can enjoy a dinner in the restaurant and have a drink in the cockpit for the good night.
Starting from Trogir or Split, the closest islands and bays which you can reach and drop the anchor would be Drvenik, Solta and Brac.
Krknjasi (Veli Drvenik)
One of the most popular bays for sailing from or back to Trogir. It is quite popular for the daily or half day trips starting from Solta or Trogir. This is the reason, why it is quite overcrowded in the high season, but most of the boats leave in the late afternoon and few of them stays on anchorage overnight.
It is a small lagoon sheltered by two small islands Mali Krknjas and Veliki Krknjas located on the southeast side of the Island Veli Drvenik.
There is a restaurant which you can visit by dinghy if you don’t want to have dinner on the boat.
Since the passage between Drvenik and Mali Krknjas is quite shallow, we recommend to enter from south. The shallow part of the bay is mostly sandy and the depth is around 7 meters, while the deeper part is covered with sea grass. The bay provides very good shelter from W winds and “Bura” NE. Not good protection is for South winds (SE, SW).
Necujam (Solta)
Necujam is the biggest bay on the island of Solta, only 8 nautical miles from Split away. It is very deep bay with 8 coves/bays Bok Supetra, Šumpjivina, Podkamenica, Maslinica, Tiha, Bok od rata, Piškera, and Supetar and provides good shelter from all winds except NE “Bura”. Most people drop the anchor in Maslenica, it is common that in high season (July and August) is quite full. But most of the boats leave in the late afternoon.
If you decide to stay overnight, we recommend to tie up stern to shore on the south side, the depth is around 6 m and bottom is sandy. Other possibility to drop the anchor is little bit further, at the outer side of Piškera, in front of the entrance to Maslenica, the depth here is around 10 meters. Podkamenica is more or less occupied by permanently anchored local boats, only possibility would be to drop the anchor in open part of the bay, at a depth of around 20meters.
Livka (Solta)
Livka is a big, still uninhabited bay on south-east side of Island Solta, located just at the Gates of Split, close to the Island of Brac. Currently there are some plans to build some tourist resort in this bay, so for now it can be enjoyed without much rush. Also, it is not so crowded during season, most probably because there are more popular bays around. The bay is exposed to SE wind “Jugo”, but provides very good shelter against NW “Maestral” and N “Tramuntana” wind. It is quite deep in the middle, so the best option is to drop the anchor at the sandy bottom in the north part of the bay, at depth around 12-15m. If there is SE “Jugo” forecasted, we suggest Bobovisca bay on Island Brac, which we will mention later in this blog.
Sesula (Solta)
Another bay on Island of Solta, Solta is one of the closest islands when you charter a boat from Trogir or Split and it has a lot of bays for anchorage on its northern and southern side. However, Sesula is a half mile long bay on the south-west side of Island Solta. At the south side, in the first little arm of the bay are located fish hatchery cages, so try to avoid this part for anchorage.
The bottom provides good place for anchoring, it is a combination of sand and silt, covered in sea grass. The depth of the inner part of the bay is between 2-7 meter, the depth in outer part is between 8-16 meter.
If the weather conditions are poor for anchoring, you can stay on one of the mooring buoys which belongs to the two restaurants located in the bay (Restaurant Sesula & Sismis).
Bobovisca bay (Island Brac)
Bobovisca bay is 10 nautical miles away from Split, it is located on the west side of island Brac and it is divided into two arms, one called Bobovisca and other Vicja Luka.
There is the possibility to moor on the waterfront (quay) or mooring buoys. For anchorage you can go to the spot in the north arm, called Vica or at the entrance of Bobovisca. Vica is quite shallow, between 3-5m, the depth at the entrance and in front of Bobovisca is between 8-12 m.
In the village Bobovisca two restaurants, a bar and a small supermarket.
Both bays „Bobovisca“ and „Vicja Luka“ offers good protection from all kind of winds. Only, if there is strong NW „Maestral“ blowing it causes waves in the bay.
