Sea kayaking in Croatia (EN)

 

Text and photos by Krajcsó Péter

During the season I didn't kayak a lot, so for the after-season-holidays we choosed some sea kayaking. Last year we did a course when I found out that sea kayaking in unattractive surroundings is really boring so we decided to go to the famous Kornati islands where the most useful service of transport are the water-weicles.

As I work in the tourism, for the holidays I prefer the after season. Usually we travel mid-September, but this year we could manage just end of September to get some free days. We were a bit worried about the weather but as we found out (unless you get some ugly storm) in Croatia there is no complain about the temperature till October.

True that the highways cost as price of gold, but you need just a few hours to drive along the coast. The best place to start with sea kayaks is the town 'Biograd na more' (the length of the name is just to avoid mixing it with Beograd, capital of Serbia). You can leave your car on the free-beach or if you want to have it safer for some daily fee you can leave it in the port or in a camp-site.

You need to do some searching on the internet to find some decent map about the islands (at least 1:100 000), if you can laminate it or if you have a waterproof bag, you already win. Starting from Biograd you can do a longer 2-3 km traverse to reach the Pašman island. Its good to check out yourself here in the beginning, how you feel on the open water, to get the feeling of esteeming the distance and the time you need to get there. Paddling around the island you have to do at least one more long traverse. After you can choose a longer way from island to island to reach the Kornati National Park, or with some more long traverses a shorter one. My opinion is, that unless you are really oriented for paddling, you definitely should choose the longer way, as the point of the sea kayaking is to get to the places, to see such a wonders what otherwise you could not.

The sea kayaks are huge. You can put equipment, food and drink for a whole week inside, and you can tight some stuff on the top as well. But when you are doing the preparing you need to keep in mind that you will carry around all this stuff while you are on the water. By the paddling you definitely feel whether you have 20 of 40 kilos plus. Food you can choose after your taste but as about water you minimally need daily 1,5 liter to drink and at least half liter for cooking and washing yourself. You can save some weight by adding one third sea-water e.g. for rice and pasta. It is clever to count with one extra day. When you are loading your boat you really need to be aware that the weight is in balance on the two side, otherwise your boat is gonna turn all the time towards the heavier side.

I wrote in the beginning that in Croatia there is no complain about the temperature in September. But the wind can be already unpredictable in autumn. We paddled around the island Pašman, but at midday the wind started to be stronger so we decided to wait with the big traverse. Although next day the weather was even worse we started to paddle back but after 15 minutes try we found out that it is impossible to get anywhere from there. But there was no reason for panic, food and drink we had enough for a few more days and as shipwrecked we could enjoy the beauty of the empty holiday houses. Finally when the conditions become better we decided to do some kayaking around and going slowly back to the continent. We had a nice time, but next - besides the internet forecast - I will ask around some local fishermen about the weather.