The Elegance of Dubrovnik

DISPATCH 12, Lopud 6/25/05
It seems like a long time ago that we were experiencing the coldest Croatian June in memory. For the past week our days have been a game of avoiding the heat of the day. The heat of the sun...definitely falls sometime between 8 AM and 7 PM, which means our days of paddling from...to the Korcula Peninsula and out to the...islands of Sipan and Lopud and...have taken on a definitive Mediterranean flavor—long siestas in whatever piece of shade we can grab, which has ranged from rock overhangs to pieces of scrub grass, moving from the tiniest bit of shade to the next...I went to watch the moonrise a few nights ago, towards the end of the year's longest day, we were in the small fishing village of Luka on the island of Sipan, when, around 10:30, it finally came up, climbing straight up behind the village's 500 year old bell tower. Tonight is our last night at sea. Tomorrow morning, near dawn, we hope before the heat comes, we paddle the last 15 kilometers to the walled city of Dubrovnik.

DISPATCH 13,Dubrovnik 6/28/05
We rounded a bend in a coastal mountain and ahead, between paddle strokes, I could hear Alex singing a slightly bent version of the 'Hallelujah' chorus. I wasn't sure if it was because this was our final day of kayaking, or simply because he'd been the first to spy the impressive walled city of Dubrovnik, from sea level.

Tall stone walls rising from the rock lining the shore, the city has stood here, magnificently, for 1,000 years...though it was badly rocked in 1991-92 by fighting. Serb militia surrounded the city, blockaded the roads in and out and lobbed artillery in from land and sea. As we paddled we looked for the evidence of the patching job that had taken place post-war, to restore the elegant UNESCO-protected city and revive its major industry—tourism.

We recognized the marina on the southern edge of the city from wartime photographs, when dozens of boats had been set on fire here. This day, calm reigns (except for the myriad tourist taxis racing in and out of the small port). It is ironic that it took the bombing of this historical city to get European and U.S. negotiators in to help end the fighting between Croats and Serbs 14 years ago...

Our adventure ends here, just inside the gates of the walled city. Pulling kayaks onto our last pebble beach, melting under another 100-plus degree day, we spy a seaside coffee bar. After our first fresh water douche in many days, we crawl inside, hungry for shade, happy to have arrived here, the end of this particular journey...

Fished Out

DISPATCH 10, Ston 06/21/05

The small town of Ston sits at the juncture of the Korkula Peninsula and the mainland, bordered by water on both sides. The town's importance for eight centuries was an outpost for the protection of Dubrovnik, which is 50 kilometers away and was the most important salt manufacterer in the country...square-walled ponds produce more than 600 tons of salt a year. Today, they continue to create 200 tons. We arrived in Ston early in the morning as the sun bounced off the town's other notable artifice, which we heard about over and over and over—a 5 kilometer stone wall built above and across the mountain. It's the second largest man-made wall in the world. The highlight of our two days here was on a small boat on the tip of the protected Korcula Peninsula with Tony, a Croatian-American mussel and oyster farmer. He took us out to his farm, long lines hung from buoys filled with...shellfish. The lines hung heavy with mussels and oysters each the size of a fist, each...one ton he currently sells each year...mussels he explained, "I can sell that for around $1.40, but for each oyster I get almost $1 each. So, the more oysters the better for me." Cracking open a few oysters straight from the sea, he struggles with the sharp knife. "Sorry," he apologizes, "it's usually my mother, or my grandmother, who does the opening."

DISPATCH 11, Luka-island of Sipan 06/23/05

Under a setting sun Miljenka -- the lone professional, i.e. licensed fisherwoman, on the island -- feeds 300 of net into the sea and crosses her fingers, literally, that there will be fish in it when she returns in the morning. ''We have fished here the past 10 days,'' she says, motioning to her husband Dvjo to accelerate the small boat forward, ''and we have not been so lucky.'' A native of the island, she and her family --- three boys aged 18, 17 and 8 -- have lived and fished on Sipan since war drove them from Dubrovnik. She tells a story of getting around a mainland road block by racing from here to Ston in a speedboat, two of her sons huddled on the floor, under fire from both land and sea. Life has been better here since then, but the fishing has gone mostly downhill. ''In the two years just after the fighting ended, in 1992, the fishing was incredible. Since during the war there was no fishing at all, the fish population grew very big. Today . . . I'm not sure where they have all gone.'' Her meticulous logs, required by the government, show her daily take to range from 8 to 10 kilos, which are sold -- usually -- to the same restaurant. The next morning, with her son Ivan doing most of the heavy work of pulling the net in over the rollers of a motorized winch, Miljenka frowns when the first 100 meters of net come in with just a half'-dozen fish . . . which turns to a smile when meaty, red fish start flopping around on the deck. Her account of a decline in fishing matches what we have heard along the coast, especially from small fisherman, with everyone concerned the Adriatic may already be on the verge of being fished out.