Hello. I'm Olivia, and I'm a Croatiaholic. ("Hi Olivia!" :P). So after our first full day in Croatia I'm officially in love with this place. Now THIS is a holiday! How can one have a holiday within a 5 months holiday you ask? Well, sometimes when you're traveling for that long & every single day you feel compelled to walk around & do things, learn things about the places you're in, visit old churches, be cultural etc. you really just crave some time to relax & do nothing (guilt free!). And that's where Croatia comes in :)

So, having heard wonderful things about the Island of Hvar, we decided to go on a full day yacht cruise around Hvar & the smaller islands nearby. It's about 2 hours ferry ride from Split to Hvar, which is a UNESCO world heritage listed site that has been names one of the top 10 islands in the world, & among the top 5 in Europe! Not too shabby ;) The company running the cruises was kind enough to delay their departure by an hour so we could join the others who were staying on Hvar island after catching an 8:00AM ferry over from Split.

So we set out on a beautiful, clear, warm (i.e., perfect!) day on a 40ft yacht with an Texan brother & sister, a girl from Washington DC, a very shy German man, & our native Croatian skipper for the day. Because the skipper couldn't do all she needed to do on her own she enlisted Nigel's help throughout the day to steer the yacht & do other yachty rope-pulling & releasing kinda jobs. Having sailed with his Dad (who sailed in the America's cup) quite a few times he did a sterling job! Rod, you would have been very proud :) Particularly seeing as she was yelling instructions to him in a mixture of English & Croatian, sometimes getting things a tad confused i.e., Skipper: "Push! Push! Push! Push! No, push!" Nigel (confused): "Do you mean pull…?" Skipper: "Yes! Pull!" haha

So we sailed for a couple of hours before stopping at a little cave to go snorkeling. The water was a deep aqua blue & a perfect temperature for swimming. Not exactly warm, per say, but refreshing & really lovely once you'd been in for a while. We swam inside to where there was a small hole in the roof of the cave where a beam of sunlight shone through creating a column of glowing light in the water & a beautiful shimmering pattern on the ocean floor. It was just stunning. After about 20 minutes in the water we headed back to the boat & set out for another small beach where we stopped for lunch on the boat. Our skipper prepared a beautiful lunch with lots of cold salads (green, cous cous, pasta) & local olives & olive oil for our bread.

After lunch we stayed moored near the beach for a couple of hours so we could swim, snorkel, sleep, or sunbathe (so many wonderful S-words :D). The wind had picked up a little so it was kinda chilly, but I was keen to swim again, I just couldn't quite bring myself to jump in. I helped Nigel out by pushing him in, & then I got the karma I deserved when the skipper pushed me in afterwards! We lay on the front of the yacht for about an hour after that in the sun (yes, I was fully covered by towel/sarong & had reapplied sunscreen about 5 times that day) drifting in and out of sleep. We made a move back to Hvar around 5 in the afternoon & by then the winds had really picked up & it was a great ride back sitting with our legs dangling over the edge of the yacht dipping up & down through the waves.

Upon our return, Nigel & I found a lovely little Italian restaurant willing to prepare a meal for us to takeaway with us so that we could eat it on the ferry ride back & then we waited outside the cruise company's office for our lift back to the ferry. As we started eating a curious little pug wandered over & it was the strangest looking thing I'd ever seen…it was really weird…it's tongue stuck out all the time, like even with it's mouth closed, & right out to one side. When it licked it's lips or stuck it's tongue further out it went right out to one side instead of straight forward. It also had one sorta bung looking eye! It was kinda adorable in an odd looking way hehe

We slept most of the ferry ride home & wandered back through the old town to our hostel sleepy from all the sun that day. That night I slept better than I have in a long, long time. My name is Olivia, and I'm a Croatiaholic. And I have absolutely no problem with that, whatsoever :D