The Yacht Week Croatia Black Route 2013 - The Climax (Hvar)

I'm laughing to myself already and I haven't even started.  Today's blog chronicles our two days on the island of Hvar - my own personal version of heaven.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

We woke up early because we had a full itinerary for the day. Our first stop was the green caves which were MUCH better than the blue ones anyway.  Mostly because they were free and you can jump off of them.  I jealously watched a bunch of guys doing backflips but my laziness won out because there was no way I was walking up the sharp rocks to get up there.

 

 

 

My lilo had been left on someone else's baot (henceforth to be sounded out in your head the way Crispy says it... "Baaaaaa-ot!") yesterday so I had to swim myself around.  Additional laziness prevented me from doing this for long so we soon tired and went on to the next stop on the itinerary... The Circle Baot Party.  This is one of the famous activities on Croatia Yacht Week.  Basically all the baots tie up to each other but instead of tying up in a line they tie up so that the baots create a circle.

Then everyone dives into the middle of the circle on their lilos and parties.  It's AWESOME.  Only problem... you have to get there really early in order to get in on the circle because once it's created it's very difficult to add baots.  Luckily, Kukar is the coolest skipper ever and "knows" people so we were able to sneak in.  We would later find out that this was the biggest circle party ever on Yacht Week.  So big in fact that I couldn't get a very good picture so I stole some from the Yacht Week.  Breaking records bitches.

 Photo Credit: Yacht Week Website

The center of the circle was crazy... people cruising around on giant inflatables singing rugby songs while taking shots from Gumby.  NUTS.  This is also the point in the trip when JagerMan got his name as he doled out shots of Jagermeister to anyone who could stomach it.

Jagermeister makes friends and soon we found ourselves laughing with a bunch of kids from Sydney about how Yacht Week is pretty much just Sydney Spring Break since 99.9% of the people on the trip were Australians.  You try to get away from home on your holiday and then your entire home comes along!  The Sydney kids were three couples and one single guy who moving forward will be known as the Lone Ranger.  As the token single guy on their baot he was constantly being punished by the couples.  We offered up Slutty Winston for a couple rounds and when it got to him he took a huge chug only to realize that his friends had filled Winston with salt water.  Hilarious.

Eventually baots began to leave and we wanted a good spot at the marina so we raced to Palmizana, the closest marina to Hvar.  We kidnapped Lone Ranger so he could hang with some single peeps.  Turns out that is 100% not allowed.  Apparently the whole reason you have to submit your crew list to YW before you arrive is that if the Croatian Coast Guard pull your baot over and you have more or less than the people listed on the crew list the skipper gets in HUGE trouble.  Sorry Kukar!!!

Low and behold who should appear but the skipper from Vis kindly requesting his shoes back.  Whoops.  Wouldn't have stolen them if I'd known he only had one pair of shoes!  Wait a second...who only brings one pair of shoes!  We had just enough time to shower and try to be dignified before jumping in the water taxi (40 kuna round-trip so hold on to your ticket) to Hvar for the day party at Hula Hula bar which is my second favorite bar on the island.  It was only going on until dark so we had to hurry!  The water taxi into Hvar was BEAUTIFUL.

This was my second favorite dance party of the trip (the biggest occurred the next day so keep reading!).  We were all standing on our own wooden blocks singing to Million Voices, Blurred Lines, Call Me Maybe and the other trillion songs that would soon come to be the Yacht Week 2013 playlist... while being sprayed with water.  I'd been jonesing for a Hula Hula peach daiquiri pitcher since I started this trip so we each got one.  It took so long for the bartender to complete our order that he just kept giving me free shots.  It was this night that we would befriend Eggs and Hugh Jackman, two of the other skippers.  Skippers on Yacht Week are literally the best.

 

 

Once the sun went down we danced our way back towards Hvar town to my favorite place on Earth.... Kiva bar.  This bar has literally zero redeeming qualities.  It's small, loud, dark, sweaty and a pain to get a drink. Pretty much everything I look for in a bar.  And it was just how I remembered it from last summer... to my left a guy was getting a helmet shot (you take a shot in an old WWII helmet and then they bang the crap out of the helmet until you can barely stand) and to my right another guy was losing himself to the dance music wearing a unicorn head.  LOVE THIS PLACE!

Needless to say I danced it out for hours...

Inside Jokes:
Bang in a cubbyhole? I like a challenge
Babies? No! STDs?  Eh.
Sunnies Stealer!


Wednesday, July 10, 2013

My first morning feeling AWFUL.  I was wondering if I'd make it through the entire week without a hangover.  C'est la vie, I suppose.  I was feeling so awful that when the YW Crew team came by to tell us that there would be a pirate booze cruise to Hvar in the afternoon I almost yakked.  JagerMan's best friend growing up just happened to be in Hvar while we were there so they left early to go bro out in Hvar together.

That left me with Danger One and Two who spent the better part of the morning convincing me why I HAD to go on this booze cruise.  Judith finally won me over when she pointed out that the booze cruise was 100 kuna round-trip which was more or less the price of the water taxi plus a little.  She reasoned that we were going to have to get to Hvar somehow... why not on a pirate baot?  How could I argue with the genius of that?  So we decided we would go.  Kukar kindly offered to stand in line to get the tickets (there was a limited number so you had to line up for them) but before she had a chance Lead Lifesaver came by and demanded money so he could get us tickets.  Apparently Lead Skippers don't wait in lines.  BOOM.

To repay Lead Lifesaver for yet another kindness we once again covered him in body paint.  This led to us covering half the pier of people in body paint... e'erybody wanted some.  And then we skipped down to the pirate baot to get the party started.

Herein, lies the best party of the trip.  Imagine 200 people on an average sized pirate baot dancing to epic music on beautiful blue Croatian waters in the sun with all their new best friends covered in neon paint.  I attempted to capture all the mayhem via the GoPro we had bought for this trip but had just now bothered to use.  Weeks later we'd watch the footage to find mostly just shots of crotches and boobs since it had been strapped to my wrist and I'd forgotten it was on. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Yacht Week

I did manage to capture multiple shots of Sling with his tongue out though.  Poor guy got his nickname because he'd managed to trip and fall off the baot smashing most of his left side against the baot resulting in a helicopter ride to a hospital.  Like a boss he came BACK to Yacht Week with half his upper body in a cast.  We are currently attempting to edit it into some type of viable video. 

At some point I got tired of the GoPro, traded it off to Judith and wander off to the bathroom.  On my way back I ran into a French skipper who I recognized in passing (Yacht Week is sort of like sorority rush.  You end up thinking you know someone because you've passed them multiple times but don't actually).  We chatted for a while about how his dad was in the baot business and he'd learned how to sail at the age of seven.  That is crazy.  He was skippering for the Brazilians' baot so at some point I found myself surrounded by the Brazilians.

Next thing I know they are wrapping a bracelet around my wrist explaining that the bracelet is magic.  Basically you make three knots to tie it around your wrist.  When each knot is tied you make a wish.  If you keep the bracelet on until it literally falls off your three wishes come true.  If you cut off the bracelet none of them will.  Maybe I need to amp up my wish game because two of them have already come true and I'm still wearing the bracelet.  I also didn't even need to come up with a nickname for him because the Brazilians kept chatting "High School Musical" and "Zac! Zac!" because he has the exact same haircut as Zac Efron in the HSM movies.  Hilarious.

 

 

Photo Credit: Yacht Week Website

We finally arrived at Hvar with a baot that was keeling to one side like the Titanic and jam packed into Carpe Diem, one of the best known clubs in Hvar.  To clarify, there is Carpe Diem club on the mainland and Carpe Diem club on the island.  Same club, different locations.  The Peruvians had gotten a cabana so we spent most of the afternoon running around it being ridiculous.  Skipper PBR earned his nickname that afternoon as he kept swiping my PBR truck hat off my head when I wasn't looking.  I told him he was allowed to wear it but only within the confines of the cabana.  Step outside and lose your privilege.  This just immediately made him set off running through the club. 

 

 

Eventually the Yacht Week crew was kicked out of Carpe Diem to entertain ourselves until it was time to go to the island.  You don't want to show up to the island until at least 1:30-2am so we had a long time to wander.  I convinced Lead Lifesaver, Flume, Dancey and my bao crew to go to Hello Burger for dinner.  Hello Burger has the BEST burgers especially when you've been drinking for the past six hours.  Lead Lifesaver was so far gone that he managed to embellish too much during one of his stories and accidentally smashed his lit cigarette into my wrist.  OUCH.  All those brownie points from saving us down.the.drain.

After dinner we all sort of lost track of each other because some people got too tired to wait for the island to open.  I somehow ended up on my own back at Kiva where I ran into the Lil Bros.  The Lil Bros are two adorable Sydney boys who I had befriended earlier in the trip.  They are so adorable, I dubbed them my little bros because I basically wanted to adopt them and/or steal them home in my suitcase.  They forced me to take an aggressive number of Jager shots with them.  Help.

Meanwhile Lead Lifesaver resurfaced and I realized he was wearing a completely different shirt.  Turns out he'd gone back to the baots with Kukar and Eggs only to throw up, change his shirt and steal back to Hvar.  Definition of puke and rally.  I was kind of impressed.  That was until he bought a pitcher of some tropical drink, took the seven straws out of it, threw them on the floor, and then proceeded to upend the entire drink all down his front.  So much for changing his shirt. 

I finally reached a point where I just had to go home (and I've been to Carpe Diem island before so I knew what I was missing).  I chatted with some peeps from Los Angeles on the water taxi back and then ran into the Lone Ranger (his baot was docked next to ours).  Poor kid looked hungry so we made sandwiches and then sat on the baot watching all the drunk kids come home.  There is no people-watching that can equal Yacht Week people-watching.  The highlight was Lone Ranger's skipper spending close to 45 minutes trying to make a bed out of the sail of the baot so that he could bang some chick.  She just wandered aimlessly around waiting.

Sandwiches eaten, I bid Lone Ranger adieu and hit the hay.  Long day.  Awesome day.  Not so awesome? 1200 kuna for port fees when I woke up the next day.

Inside Jokes:
"Ida Ida crushing pinjas!"
Kiss me I'm hurt!

Next Stop: The Island of Hvar (Southern Croatia)

On to the next stop in our journey... the island of Hvar.

Friday, August 10, 2012

That first morning did NOT start off well.  I consumed some water from questionnable origins and it put my stomach in a tailspin for most of the morning.  Luckily, locating the Hertz rental car location just outside of the Old City was really easy.  I've never seen a rental place run so smoothly!

We spent the rest of the morning driving from Dubrovnik to Split, which is about 4.5 hours. We passed town upon beautiful town as we wrapped around the coastline in our little Punto.  The car was manual and speedy and we'd opted for AC which was DEFINITELY the way to go.  Boy it was hot!

Upon arrival in Split, we followed the clearly marked signs to the car ferry to Hvar.  You can either take the passenger ferry which leaves fairly often or you can take one of a few car ferries to the island.  We unfortunately had just missed the car ferry so we had to wait a few hours for the next one.  It's nice though because you can just park your car in line and then go grab food near the wharf while you wait.  A ticket for two people and one car is 412 kuna.  Once on the ferry it was about 2 hours to Hvar and they have food and drinks on board.  I slept most of the way.

Once we arrived on Hvar Island we had about 20 minutes of driving to the other side of the island to Hvar Town.  We made a small wrong turn once we arrived in town but easily remedied this by asking someone on the side of the road and made it to our hostel - Villa Skansi.  This place was GREAT.  It beat out a couple of HOTELS I've stayed at that were more expensive.  And the people who worked there were amazing - so hospitable and a lot of fun too.

Our "room" was really an apartment that was super clean, fairly quiet with a kitchen and AC.  The only downside was the bathroom had an annoying shower because there wasn't a fixture to hold the shower head so it sprayed all over the bathroom (which didn't have great drainage).  Otherwise it was lovely.

We were starving so we headed down the street to Lungo Mare, which came highly recommended by the front desk.  I ordered the "muckalica" which is pork with onions and peppers and brown rice in sauce.  It was the best meal of the trip and the portions were HUGE for the money.

 

 

While we were waiting for our food we ended up making friends with Luka and Luka 2 who were the cousins of the owner of the restaurant.  Turns out their other friends, Julia and Marco, own the hostel!  Small world.

Before we knew it we were sitting at their table drinking wine and eating crepes.  Luka 2 was hilarious and told a ton of naughty jokes ("push").  My only quip with the place is the service was reallllllly slow so if you plan on eating here make a night of it.  Luka's son decided we weren't getting our food fast enough (he's 8 years old) so he made a point of telling them who's "boss" and to get us ladies our food.  He was a totally cutie.

At this point it was past 11pm and we'd made friends with some boys from L.A. who'd joined in the fun so they suggested we go to Carpe Diem.  To clarify Carpe Diem is a club in the harbor of Hvar Town that has an extension out on an island about 10 minutes from the harbor.  It's only like a five minute walk from the hostel to the water taxi that takes you out to the island.

The entry fee into the club was 150 kuna per person (thanks boys!) and the club itself kind of reminded me of Nikki Beach Club in Miami.  I think we may have just gotten there too early because the place was dead.  I also wasn't in much of a drinking mood which probably contributed to the "boringness."

By the end of the night it got a little better and we made tons of new friends from Brazil and France.  However, Lil Sass had to pull the "I'm really wasted and need help getting home" so that we could disentangle ourselves without being followed home.  This marked the first of our 6am bedtimes on the trip.


Saturday, August 11, 2012

Having had such an amazing time on the booze cruise I went on in Lagos, Portugal, we woke up the next morning and promptly signed up for the hostel's booze cruise which was 350 kuna per person.  Knowing that the next day would be a sh1tshow, we opted for a more relaxed afternoon starting with a tour of Hvar Town.

As I'd mentioned Hvar Town is only five minutes walking from the hostel although it's a bit tricky since the road is windy.  I recommend heading downhill and once you inevitably hit the water go right until you end up in town.  That's the best directions I can give you.

Hvar Town was adorable with gorgeous water and brightly colored boats.  The wharf was lined with little vendor tents where I found an awesome bracelet to add to my collection.  Unfortunately Lil Sass is terrible with conversions because it turned out to be a $15 bracelet after I consulted my iPhone's calculator.  DOH!

We also were smart and purchased our return car ferry ticket for Monday so that we were assured a spot and then headed along the water towards the famous Hula Hula bar.  Along the way we found a small secluded "beach" (really a giant rock) with lounge chairs so we stopped and sunned ourselves for awhile.  Turns out it's 40 kuna per person which we didn't know so when the lady came around we gave her some money and left.  Luckily we'd been there for about an hour.

Just around a couple more bends in the path and we arrived at Hula Hula bar which was exactly what we had been looking for.  It's a wooden bar right on the water and is very laidback until around 5pm when suddenly the music picks up and the party gets started.  Turns out the people who work at the hostel were also there (Nicole, Marina, and Luke) so we ended up sitting with them and ordering peach daiquiris.  We also ordered the chicken skewers with peanut sauce and the melon with prosciutto.  The chicken was a little dry but the melon/prosciutto combo was excellent.  The melon was really juicy and sweet and the meat was soft and just salty enough.

 

Sandy, salty and sweaty, we wandered back to the hostel to chill and shower to go out.  Upon arrival back at the hostel my spidey sense picked up Aussies in the area.  Turns out there were six of them!  Shwood, Ponyo, Super T(-Shirt), Party Pants, Captain Cous and Little Sailor (names have been changed to protect their identities).  These poor lads had just finished up their week-long Yacht Week excursion and were either asleep at the table, tending to massive bruises or blowing their snotty noses.  Basically it was friends-at-first-sight.

It took about five minutes of convincing for them to sign up for the next day's booze cruise and then it was time to get down to serious drinking.  Lil Sass was still getting ready while I hung out with the boys regaling them with "Tales of the Salmon."  Acutely intrigued they asked me questions about this infamous salmon... "Can you do it to guys and girls? Does it hurt? How many salmon can you do in one day?"  My answers were vague and usually ended with me saying "You'll have to ask my friend -  The Queen of Salmon."  By this I meant Lil Sass who at this exact moment made her appearance on the deck.  All six boys immediately clamored for answers.  It took Lil Sass about two seconds to pick her target and next thing we know she has salmoned the lone girl who had come with the boys.

For those of you who are new to salmoning I turn to UrbanDictionary.com for a definition....

"When you walk up behind someone and you flail your arm/stiff hand between their upper thighs, imitating the act of catching a salmon by hand."

So you can understand why the entire table went into uproar as soon as this happened.  It was one of the best salmons I've ever seen.  Turns out the girl didn't even blink an eye and promptly joined the crew unfazed.  Big Sass.

Somehow the conversation turned from salmoning to shiving to Shetland pony t-shirts.  The boys had apparently all rocked an assortment of pony t-shirts on their yacht earlier in the week.  I insisted that said pony shirts should make a reappearance on the booze cruise the next day.

From there a massive group of us left the hostel and wandered into town.  The night started off with free jaeger shots at Nautica Bar but it was fairly lame.  I think the party truly got started at Kiva Bar, when "Shots, Shots, Shots" came on and we devolved into a massive pile of sweaty, beer stained dancing bodies.

 

This ridiculousness continued to Skybar, a more upscale establishment where we quickly took the "CL" out of Classy and Super T and I discussed his plethora of incredible Ben Sherman shirts.

At some point we tried to end the night at the club inside a fortress on a hill above the city but it was closed because someone had been stabbed (turns out later all that talk about shiving earlier in the evening had started a rumor and really something else had shut down the place).

So we opted for our only other choice, the Island of Carpe Diem.  This time we were there super late and the place was hoppin.'  Ponyo, Shwood and I danced it out until close to 6am and then retired back to our rooms.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Today we were up and "cruisin' for a boozin'."  The Aussies all dawned sunscreen, hats and speedos in an effort to be "sun smart."  Ponyo, who appeared that morning in his pony shirt as promised, suggested I turn my golden locks into a "hair-brero" since I didn't have a hat.  Little Sailor appeared in the tiny sailor hat for which he earned his nickname and promptly lost it before even making it to the boat at the bottom of the hill.

The booze cruise was a grand time with an open, unlimited bar of sangria, beer and mixed drinks.  I collected a straw for each drink resulting in a rainbow of colors.  The boys meanwhile told us stories from the S.S. Sausage (their all man Yacht Week boat) which included the definition of "man train" and an assortment of dead baby jokes.  At some point Ponyo got a lesson on respecting woman, Lil Sass flashed the entirety of the boat, all of us jumped up and down (innertubes included) to Gusttavo Lima's "Balada Boa" and The Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger," and I made about seventeen failed attempts to climb into an abandoned dinghy due to my complete lack of upper body strength.  Pretty sure Ponyo's GPRO video camera caught all of this on tape including Lil Sass and Party Pants trading.. that's right... pants.

Luckily, no one was "sharked" during this experience (imagine a salmon but throw in an upward thrusting thumb) however Ponyo's pony "t-shirt" had become a one shoulder shirt, remnants of the second sleeve having been made into headbands and wristbands for the rest of us (below you can see the step-by-step demise).

 

And let the day not stop there!  Post-boat we immediately hit Hula Hula bar where Ponyo ate an entire stick of chapstick, Lil Sass got lost after trying to pee off the dock, and Super T explained how every time he books a hotel room he requests "champagne on arrival."  To this day apparently it hasn't worked.  Ponyo convinced the bartender to give him 60 kuna worth of a 80 kuno peach daiquiri only to give it to me and watch me promptly drop it on the ground.

We ended the night with a quick jaunt through the children's playground where Ponyo and Super T tried to ride the tiny plastic bouncy horse.  At some point Super T and Captain Cous found some French girls to entertain them, Shwood headed back to catch his 6am flight from Split, and Ponyo and I opted for street pizza.


Monday, August 13, 2012

It wasn't until the next morning that I realized Lil Sass had at some point gotten completely lost while trying to lock in a boy.  She appeared the next morning in the sassiest state of the trip and promptly yelled at me to say "we had a fight last night and you didn't even show up for it!!"  It didn't take long to soothe her back into a coherent state at which point she explained that she had tried to get an extra key from the night watchmen who had refused and after being yelled at by her for 20 minutes responded with "You are not a very nice girl."  Incredible.

Amends was finally solidified over Hello Burgers in the little downtown area where I ordered the actual Hello Burger which is like bacon, rumpsteak and regular steak all mixed together into a mouthwatering monstrosity of meat.  MMMM.

As late afternoon rolled around we said our sad goodbyes to the boys who promised we'd be getting FB messages about joining Yacht Week next year (yes please!) and took the car ferry back to Split.  We drove around Split for ages looking for a parking spot and finally made it to our next accommodation, Hostel Sunseekers in the old Diocletian palace section of the city.  Because we had just come from the party island, and I was sick, we were grateful for the quiet location that was still very central.  We grabbed a simple dinner that was delicious and then went to  bed eager to see the next city on our adventure.