I spent an awesome week travelling from Split to Dubrovnik on the Voyager sail with MedSailors. Mornings in Croatia were spent reading books on deck, afternoons jumping in the water and exploring the islands, and evenings eating and drinking in the local restaurants and on the boat.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I arrived though.

– How much work was I meant to do?
– How much would I spend?
– What’s for dinner?
– Where do I sleep?
– Where do we even meet?

Seeing as I hadn’t had much (any) time to do any research I had lots of questions. If you’re planning on doing any of the Medsailors cruises – Turkey or Greece anyone? – then here’s everything you need to know. Obviously its Split to Dubrovnik specific, but will help give an idea of what to expect.

And if you have any questions at the end, let me know.

Here goes…

MedSailors Split to Dubrovnik

What to bring

Space is tight on the boat, so take as little as possible. Hard cases are traditionally thought of as bad luck on sail boats, and there’s nowhere to put them, so go soft.

– Shorts
– Underwear
– Tops to protect from sun
– Long sleeved top or jacket for evenings or for the wind when going fast
– Something nicer if you’re planning on going out in the ports, but not necessary
– Flip flops
– Beach towel
– Lilo – makes it comfier to lie on top, but you can buy when you’re there
– Booze – you can buy more at almost every port so don’t feel like you need to stock up
– Camera and phone – With Three I had 3G almost everywhere (not necessarily the best thing!)

That’s all you need. To be honest, you’ll probably end up wearing the same all week anyway.

What to expect

I’d wake up at around 7:30am naturally and stagger out on deck. If we were in a port I’d go to the toilet facilities rather than the boat, or grab a coffee onland so I could use theirs.

At around 9am breakfast was served. Some arrangement of eggs, fresh bread, cornflakes, jogurt and muesli. We did have fruit once too.

We’d then spend the next two/three hours-ish sailing the seas. Most of us would lie out on deck taking it all in, others went back to bed, and others sat up with Skipper Dan in the cockpit.

At around midday we’d drop the anchor and have some time to either chill, get paddleboarding or go for a swim. I loved jumping off the boat. At one point some of the guys wet cliff jumping but I can’t be doing that. Too risky for someone as clumsy as me.

Lunch would be at 1pm. Some sort of salad, bread, cheese and tuna. And then there was that day that we had sausage stew, which was incredible. Our Skipper Dan made all this.

3pm and we’d sail some more, to the night’s port. On arrival you could either get off and explore the island or stay on board and chill. It’d really depend on what there was to do on the island which option I chose.

7pm, dinner. We ate out every night. Sometimes there’d be a Medsailors chosen restaurant we’d all go to, other times we’d be left to find our own.

Drinks, party, bed. My latest night was probably about midnight. I was on the last Medsailors Voyager trip of the season so things were winding down. I’m sure if you wanted to stay out much later, you could. Skipper Dan told us lots of stories of people making the most of it!

The accommodation

The Medsailors accommodation is basic. Try and get yourself one of the double rooms. My friend Jen (fellow travel blogger from shegetsaround.co.uk) and I were the only non-couple on our boat so had the bunk bed room.

The width was smaller than my wingspan, and probably 6-foot in length. One move in the night and you’d wake yourself up. A twitchy arm could mean the end of your sleep. Here we are trying to fit in at the same time, the only time we did that.

My top tip would be to have a few drinks before bed so that you can pass out. The local drink ‘Prosek’ was great for that.

Whether you’re in the ‘coffin bunks’ like us, or you’ve got a double room, space is tight.

What’s the food like?  

I was definitely spoiled by the food on the boat when I went sailing in the Philippines. Before I left for Croatia I was telling my dad how we’d be fishing in the day and cooking it up on the stove on the boat. Not entirely sure how I’d made that up.

The food was still good though, especially for a cheese and tuna lover like me. Not so much for Jen who doesn’t eat either. Most breakfasts for me were a mix of cornflakes, muesli and jogurt.

Lunch was generally bread, meat, cheese and tuna. Apart from the last day when Skipper Dan cooked up a delicious tomatoey, sausage feast.

And then meals were on land in the various ports we came into.

– First night, Sesula – fish at beach bar – 160kr / £18.48 (pictured)
– Second, Hvar – cevapi (like lamb kofta) at a marina restaurant – 80kr/£9.24
– Third, Vela Luka – pizza at Alfa Pizzeria – 80kr/£9.24
– Fourth, Korcula – incredible Asian food at Silk – 240/£27.72 (included two beers and a lot of food)
– Fifth, Mljet – fish at Konoba Galicija –160kr / £18.48
– Sixth, Sipan – beef bourginon somewhere –160kr / £18.48

All the food was really good, but make sure you go for the beef stew in Sipan rather than the steak option – thankfully I picked wisely but the others had total food envy.

The toilet situation

The toilet on the boat stank for much of the trip. It turned out someone had put toilet roll down after we’d been strictly instructed by Dan not to in our toilet use lesson on the first day. I actually started to dread going.

Thankfully I soon realised there was another toilet down the other end of the boat that the four guys down there were keeping very quiet about. It was much nicer, fragrant almost.

The best thing to do is wait until you get into port and use the facilities there, especially for number twos.

Where you’ll go

The Medsailors Split to Dubrovnik Voyager trip doesn’t actually cover that much distance, to enable you to explore the islands and have fun there instead of sailing all day. The route on land only takes a few hours, but obviously, this is a much more interesting way of doing it.

I’d definitely recommend having some extra time on your trip afterwards to enjoy the best Dubrovnik beaches while you’re there. 

The route you eventually take can change day to day and depends heavily on the weather, but here’s what we did.

– First night, Sesula
– Second, Hvar
– Third, Vela Luka
– Fourth, Korcula
– Fifth, Mljet
– Sixth, Sipan
– Finish in Dubrovnik – check out my list of the best cheap things to do in Dubrovnik here

What can you do on the islands?

You need to be pretty organised to get the most out of the islands. For some bigger places, like Hvar, I saw the trip as a taster to come back in the future. Unfortunately it also rained while we were in Hvar, although the lightning flashes and storms we could see from the boat were amazing.

On Mljet we rented a soft top jeep to go and see the caves and just cruise around like we were off Clueless or something. You could also rent bikes to see the Mljet National Park there.

On Hvar we climbed up to the fortress but unfortunately for some reason decided not to go in, and have since been told it was amazing. So do it. It’s only 20 kuna.

We stopped off at one little island in the afternoon, just to get a mojito. Incredible.

We watched an incredible sunset from the boat in Vela Luca, if you’re going in September I’d recommend staying on the boat until it finishes as the way the bay is laid out means that you won’t see it from the restaurants.

Life is pretty chilled when you get to the islands, as in, it’s the best chance to chill out. 

Who goes?  

Jen and I ticked the ‘relaxed’ box on our sign up form, and were put on the boat with three couples. That was the end of our expected crazy week.

To be honest though, an hour in and we realised it was perfect. All six of them were really cool people, and along with skipper Dan we had a super relaxed week with no pressure for ‘forced fun’. We all got on well, had a few drinks every day, the odd intellectual conversation and some much needed early nights.

How fit do you need to be?  

You need to be able to move about the boat, so fairly agile, but unless you want to you don’t have to give any help with the actual sailing. Fitness doesn’t really come into it.

You do need to fit in the beds though. One of the guys on our trip was 6 ft 6 and was given the big room at the front, he seemed alright.

How much money will I need?  

You can spend as little or as much as you like on the trip. Food did end up being quite a bit more than I expected because of the restaurants chosen for the group meals on days 4 and 5, which were around 160 kuna for anything. Here’s the food and price list again from the food section above.

– First night, Sesula – fish at beach bar – 160kr / £18.48 (pictured)
– Second, Hvar – cevapi (like lamb kofta) at a marina restaurant – 80kr/£9.24
– Third, Vela Luka – pizza at Alfa Pizzeria – 80kr/£9.24
– Fourth, Korcula – incredible Asian food at Silk – 240/£27.72 (included two beers and a lot of food)
– Fifth, Mljet – fish at Konoba Galicija – 160kr / £18.48
– Sixth, Sipan – beef bourginon somewhere – 160kr / £18.48

On the first day I’d got over excited by the fish and ended up spending 160 kuna while everyone else had 80kr pizzas. Days 2 and 3 I ate for around 80 as I had the local speciality of cevpici, and then pizza. After that it was back to splashing out as we had Medsailors specific restaurants to go to.

If you want to stick to a budget then pizza is the best choice as it’s served everywhere. And that cevpici was delicious.

I drank either wine (70kr a litre), beer (20kr a small) or gin and tonic (20kr + mixer).

Our boat wasn’t really a boozey boat, although we did manage to get through three litres of gin by day, somehow.

Buy your booze in Split town before you leave, not at the port. It’s cheaper.

Jen and I also spent 300kr between us on the jeep hire. So 150 kuna + petrol at 1kuna per km.

– Apartment accommodation in Split – 30 euro/£26.01
– Food on the trip – 880kr/£101.70
– Drink on the trip – 300kr/£34.67 (from bars and supermarkets)
– Night in Dubrovnik – £22
– Mljet car hire – 250kr/£28.89
– An ice cream on Vela Lucca – 20kr/£2.31
– My hat – 60kr/£6.93

TOTALish for the week = £225

What’s this regatta?

On the last day you might do a regatta with all the other boats. I won’t spoil it for you, just to tell you that it was really fun and out of the five boats, we won! Yay!

Also, I took on more of a ‘supervisory role’ rather than dirtying my hands with ropes and the like. Someone had to do it.

And then we got this cup.

That night we played a few drinking games and one of the girls off our boat drank out of it. The next day we wiped it out and it was absolutely filthy, as in the cloth came out black.

If you win, don’t drink out of the cup, ok?

Drinking  

It would totally depend on the people on your boat but on ours there was no pressure to drink, in fact, it was me and Jen who probably drank the most. Surprise, surprise.

Well, when you’re on a boat sailing in the Med, reading, a gin and tonic is a must, right?

You can buy all your drinks in the port and there’s a fridge on board where you can keep it all cool. Although, space is limited and it’s mostly for food. I’d recommend you buy some plastic cups as they only have glass, and glass, booze and boats don’t mix. 

You might also want to buy some ice. The kettle was always on too, brews a plenty.

Meeting point  

We couldn’t work out where we were meant to meet the group, but turns out it was at sign 5 at the Split Old Town bus station. The journey to the port takes about an hour on the mini bus. At the port you’ll have a few hours to buy any last minute things at the shop, there’s a little food market, a pizza place and a bar with Wi-Fi.

Once the boat is ready they’ll take you over and you’ll start introductions. Let the fun begin!

What’s expected of me?

– Yep, that’s me 🙂

You can do as little or as much as you like. Although, if you don’t do anything you won’t make many friends. I think my contribution to the boat involved getting people gin and tonics whenever I wanted them, and washing up and drying three times.

I didn’t actually contribute to the sailing of the boat, which is a bit silly seeing as I want to learn to sail. But it wasn’t laziness, it was the fact I was convinced I’d probably crash the boat if I was given any thing to do.

You don’t have to cook, clean, sort the toilets, sail, or anything, unless you want to.

Any questions?

With a kettle and all the tea and coffee facilities downstairs the brews kept on coming. I’d wake up, be desperate to get out of our stuffy room, and so come up on deck and wait for someone to make a cup of coffee. Sitting up top, thinking of everyone else rushing about trying to fit in their morning coffee between the commute and work, while I could enjoy the simple act of the coffee sip, made me feel very happy and relaxed.

Breakfast by Skipper Dan

Good old Skipper Dan. I think I must’ve snapped this at the only time he wasn’t smiling. He made us breakfast and lunch every day from the little stove and fridge on the boat and here he is bringing us up some scrambled eggs.

Dan was great. He was only 22ish but had sailed all over the world. He was such an interesting guy to chat to and had lots of funny stories about past guests and his experiences sailing.

You know me, I love to get the gossip. His stories and experience reminded me of my time at summer camp. I really feel like anyone who can, at that age, should do some sort of amazing summer experience. My summer at camp was the best I’ve ever had.

Watching the fishing in Korcula

My friend Jen and I were sat enjoying a glass of wine on Korcula, one of the islands. We’d asked the waiter which wine we should choose. He recommended one, charming us, and so we took him up on it. Of course when the bill came it was 70 krona, around £8.20, each. School boy error.

But at least we’d had the entertainment from these two ladies. They’d been stood gesturing at a boat, as it came in. The fisherman leant out and passed a rope, which on further inspection I realised had three huge fish attached. She then stood there for around 20 minutes, waiting for something, but laughing and joking to someone, with a big grin on her face.

It was such an interesting glimpse of life living in a fishing town. Was the fish for her? Was that her husband? Were they going to sell it to the tourist restaurants? Will the little girl follow in her footsteps?

I love people watching the locals.

But damn that £8.20 glass of wine. Didn’t even like it.

Playing with the fishies

For some reason I thought it would be really fun to jump in the water, get someone on the boat to pass me some bread and then try and entice the fishies with it to take a cool selfie. I really hope this is an RSPCA-acceptable thing to do.

Anyway, as soon as I had the bread in my hand the fishies came a swarming. I got really panicky and scared because they were everywhere and dropped the bread. Then I’d got my snorkel too far under the water as I tried to retrieve it and started choking on the lungful of saltwater I’d just inhaled. I knew they were watching me on the boat so tried to keep my cool.

I attempted to grab the bread again, while coughing into the snorkel and having a strong word with myself to calm it. I chilled out, accepted that of course the fish weren’t going to hurt me and in the end, after all that, got these crappy photos. Oops.

(Watching the) boys being boys

As an absolute, total feminist I wanted to help out, to do as the boys did, but lying down in the hammock, reading my book, just seemed so much more appealing. So I need to put my hands up and confess to not helping with the mooring or sailing one bit.

Skipper Dan had taught us a bit about the boat on the first day and from then on got the guys to pull up and put down the anchor.

I took on more of a supervisory role and left them to it.

Learning about Croatian wine

Have to say, I wasn’t impressed with the Croatian wine. Particularly this one. This was the £8 one I mentioned earlier – too yellow isn’t it?

I’m going to Croatia again this weekend and have signed up for a wine tasting as I want to like the Croatian wine, I think I just didn’t know which one to go for. Just for you, I’ll battle on and try some more.

After the disappointment here I stuck to gin and tonic from then on. Beautiful setting though, and look at the black board behind my head – basically got my name on it.

That Alfa Pizzeria pizza

I find it very hard to be interested in pizza that isn’t covered in:

A) anchovies

B) tuna

C) capers.

Lucky for me you could pretty much get anything at the Alfa Pizzeria in Vela Luka. And this was YUM. The base was incredible too. The restaurant looked out over the marina and we got ice cream on the way home. Went to bed very satisfied that night.

Scenery even more amazing than it looks

One of the best aspects of sailing, apart from all the chilling out, is the amazing scenery you’ll see from off the boat. From places like the monastery above, to hill carved villages, the other multi-million pound boats, and the azure waters in contrast to the green hills.

It’s enough to make you want to rent a boat in Split to cruise around the islands yourself!

It can be tempting to sit and read a book but you don’t want to take one that hooks you in too much or you’ll risk missing some of the beautiful coastal sights of the Med. Which is kind of the whole point of the trip, right?

Finding a spot on the boat

In my eyes, the hammock was clearly the best spot on the boat. And lucky for us, we had the best hammock from the selection on our fleet of boats. With ours you could fold yourself in like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

As soon as any wind got up though, the hammock was pretty much the worst spot on the boat. It started swinging wildly from right to left and back again. You don’t want to be that person who’s stuck in it when the boat starts speeding along, looking like a fool.

Strategically nestle yourself in as soon as the boat comes to a stop, with a book and the sun beating down. Life doesn’t get much better.

Gin O’Clock

Jen and I bought a litre of gin for our week on the boat, and six bottles of tonic for some reason. We miscalculated there. Anyway, the other guys bought gin too, and we bought another bottle halfway through, for the team. Safe to say we were well lubricated. Not drunk though, that’s uncouth.

Just a nice glass or two of an afternoon while reading a book and admiring the view. I hope I never forget that feeling.

Abseiling the cave in Mljet

“Hire a car”, they said. “Go and see the caves”, they said. “It’ll be fun”, they said. We followed instructions, thinking we were in for a fun adventure. Unfortunately we failed to notice the beautifully carved steps leading down the side of the Odysseus Cave and thought that the only way down was to use the rope we’d seen, via an abseil.

No equipment, wearing flip flops, big towels round our neck and no number to phone Skipper Dan if anything should go wrong, we decided to go for it, down that big dark hole you see above.

We made it.

We hid our stuff behind a rock and then swam through the cave, out to the other side, where we found some of the guys off another boat gracefully coming down the steps.

Seeing as we had our stuff (like phones) we couldn’t go back up the steps, but we had to climb up the ravine, with only the rope and flip flops for safety. I went first and as the little rocks fell below me, I had to call out to Jen to wait till I was up the top before she started. Didn’t want to knock her out.

I made it up and she followed a few minutes later – pale, legs shaking and more angry than I’ve ever seen her in our four years of friendship.

It was a stupid thing to do. Funny now it’s over though…

Driving stick for the first time in TEN years

Apart from the getting in and out of the cave part, renting the car on Mljet Island was awesome. We went for the white jeep, just because it looked coolest and I was thinking we’d look a bit Sweet Valley High / Clueless in it.

I was all enthusiastic about driving then got in the driver’s seat and realised I hadn’t driven stick for about ten years. Ten years! Decided that driving around a mountainous island with huge drops probably wasn’t the best way to get back into the swing of things.

But then an hour of Jen driving later and I decided to give it a go. A quick lesson in gears from her and it all came back to me, kind of.

Here’s me super concentrating on not falling off the edge. My heart was all bum de bum. Sticking my tongue out definitely helped.

We ended up picking up some German hitch hikers and taking them a kilometre down the road to the supermarket. They were definitely more afraid of us than we were of them – pretty sure they thought we were insane.

Oh and we had to stop for photos regularly, obviously.

Watching the sunset from a castle in Korcula

We climbed up the stairs and ladders to get to the top of this castle in Korcula. This was the spot on the island to watch the sunset from. Because the castle was so tall and thin they developed a pulley system to send the cocktails up from the bar on the ground floor.

It was fun up there, but you know when you’re at the place to be and everyone else is there too? And then tempers start getting frayed and people are being unnecessarily territorial about ‘their space’?

Yeah, it was kind of like that.

A canoe welcome on arrival into Dubrovnik

These are the big castle walls that surround Dubrovnik and signified the end of our Croatia sailing trip. Sad times. There were about 30-50 people canoeing their way round, which to be honest, looked traumatic.

We were sat safe up on our Medsailors boat and could feel the waves but they were stuck in the herd of canoers with the sea getting choppier and choppier. No thanks.

It was really cool to sail round the walls though and nice of our skipper to show us the walls from the outside.

From there we headed back to the marina, and the trip was over.

Loved it.