Elaphite Island Cruise (1): Koločep

Today I went on “the best Elaphite Islands day cruise with lunch by Regina Maris.” That’s how the cruise listed itself on Viator. It takes in three Elaphite Islands: Koločep, Šipan, and Lopud.

(What are those downward arc accents called? They seem to make quite liberal use of them here.)

I am certain “best” is true in that description, without any doubt whatsoever. Although, I don’t know if it would still be true if you removed all of the qualifiers. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be. I’m saying I don’t know.

“Regina Maris” is the name of the boat. I doubt any of the other boats that cruise the Elaphite Islands use that name. Thus, “by Regina Maris” is what makes me certain that “best” is accurate. Without it, would it still be true if the “with lunch” remains? And what if they omit both qualifiers? Would “best” continue to be accurate? Like I said, I don’t know. I haven’t been on any of the other cruises that visit the Elaphite Islands. So I can’t compare. But enough about that.

Ah, to set out to sea again. It reminds me of my youth in our small fishing village. Heading out to sea almost every day, the sun beating down on my face and the wind lashing my back. Or vice versa, as the case may be. And on calm days, strike that wind thing.

The point is, there’s no life like… Wait. That was someone else’s life. Someone I’ve never met nor even know of. Never mind. That was inane. I grew up in Toronto. We occasionally took the short ferry ride on Lake Ontario to the Toronto Islands. That was pretty much it for my boating experience in my youth. I didn’t gain much more seafaring experience later in life either.

Back to real life.

The cruise I booked left from Dubrovnik’s newer, bigger port, Gruž. That’s where the gigantic floating Petri dishes known as cruise ships dock when they stop at Dubrovnik. The boat I was on was orders of magnitude smaller than one of those. And it has open sides on the two passenger seating decks. So, hopefully, it avoids the Petri dish quality.

The Elaphite Islands, or at least the ones the cruise visited, are not far off the Croatian mainland coast. So the mainland was always in sight during the voyage.

On the mainland, back from the coast, runs a low coastal mountain ridge. Clusters of what look like residential buildings dot the shore where the topology allows.

A road runs along the side of the ridge about halfway up. Somewhat larger and more frequent pockets of civilization exist beside that road.

The ridge presents grey, light brown, and green hues. The road is not visible from the sea. I deduced its existence from the tops of the occasional vehicles I saw driving along what I assumed was a road. And there were those clusters of civilization. People generally like to have a way to get to their homes and businesses. Probably a road or two.

The first stop on the cruise was the island of Koločep, about 40 minutes from Dubrovnik.

Koločep

According to the pleasant female voice that came on the boat’s speakers just before we arrived at Koločep, it is one of only three permanently inhabited Elaphite islands. The voice also told us that Koločep has only 200 permanent inhabitants.

I’m willing to bet that on busy days tour boats bring a multiple of that number of day trippers to the island. It wasn’t crowded today. But I’m pretty sure there were still more tourists than inhabitants on the island today. I don’t know the capacity of the boat I was on, but it probably brought close to that number just on that one boat. Today is Monday. The island is likely more crowded on weekends.

Oh, about those onboard announcements. They were unilingual. English only. English isn’t the mother tongue in these parts. I think I said it before in these pages, but I will say it again. Anglophone travellers, such as me, are the most spoiled tourists on this planet. Possibly on any planet. I’m not complaining about that. Just making an observation.

The cruise allotted us an hour and twenty minutes on Koločep.

Koločep is a very pleasant, scenic island. A tall, but not overly tall hill helps to make it an island rather than, say, sea.

Marked walking trails wend through the island. The trails include both concrete-paved paths and somewhat rougher, but still not rugged, stone and dirt trails.

Walking on a trail much of the way up the hill provided me with beautiful views. The deep blue of the Adriatic and the lighter green-blue by the shore, coupled with the buildings and beach on the island’s shore are idyllic.

The disembodied voice back on the boat that spoke to us before we disembarked on the island told us there are no cars on Koločep. As far as my direct observation went, that’s true. But it’s true only if you exclude golf carts, motorcycles, and three-wheeled vehicles pulling small trailers.

I saw golf carts parked near the port. I didn’t venture by any that moved in my vicinity. Although, I assume they aren’t just for show. But I crossed paths with one motorcycle travelling on a path and a couple of those three-wheeled, trailer-hauling vehicles doing the same.

Lunch

The crew served lunch on the boat, included in the price of the cruise. When I booked the trip, I had to make my choice of three options, fish, chicken, or something vegetarian. Because it was a cruise in an area where seafood is a specialty, I chose fish.

I should have expected it because I’ve experienced it a few times in other Mediterranean locales, but the fish choice was a whole, small fish—head, tail, and everything in between.

I’m an omnivore, but I prefer my food to be served in a way that allows me to pretend that it never walked on the ground, swam in the water, or flew in the sky.

Plus, I don’t have a lot of experience filleting fish. Nevertheless, once I decapitated it, I was able to lift the meat of the top half of the fish clean off the bones, and then remove the bones cleanly as well.

The fish was tasty.

The cruise crew put free wine and water on every table. (They had tables of four and six, no singles.) But they provided each customer with only one cup. So I had a choice to make, water or wine. I chose wine.

They started serving before the boat departed Kločep, and we finished eating at sea, well before arriving at our next stop, Šopan, again about a 40-minute voyage.

I’ll have more to say about our final two stops in my next post. I may or may not have already published that by the time you read this.