Our First Cruise - Monday 17/05/2010 Korcula

Korcula was our first chance to experience Croatia after missing Dubrovnik. There was no dock on the island big enough top accommodate the Ocean Village so we were to be tendered off the ship to the island. Those who had booked excursions left the ship first and we joined a queue in Connexions to be given a number, we got our number but had to wait in the bar until it was called. Each shuttle boat hold about 100 people and doubles as a life boat in an emergency and there are four shuttles. We waited about an hour before boarding the shuttle down a rickety gang plank, considering some of the passengers are on sticks and a few in wheelchairs the crew do a great job to get the shuttles loaded safely. The shuttles plied back and forth from the ship to the small harbour and the loading and unloading took more time than the crossing so only three shuttles were used and there was always one standing off either the ship or the jetty.
Having landed we entered the town through a city gate and immediately noticed the Lion of Venice as Korcula had been a province of Venice and had a wealthy Venetian community amongst the islanders.
We enjoyed the quiet ambience of the town and bought ourselves a small water colour to remind us of it. We visited Marco Polo’s tower but did not enter – too mean again! We went into several churches and were impressed by their ornate decoration, as an aside, I was impressed by my camera on museum setting, not only is the flash suppressed but it operates silently also.
We chose to have a beer on the water’s edge below where the city walls would have been but were no longer. Julia’s research yielded the information that the locals had argued with the wealthy Venetian residents as to which group should pay for the upkeep of the walls, the Venetians refused to contribute and the locals demolished all but the watch towers!
It was on the windy side and quite cloudy but we enjoyed our visit.
Throughout the cruise we were always impressed by the crew and their helpfulness, the seamen crewing the shuttles were another illustration of this; they were very attentive to all the passengers.
Back on the ship our Sail Away was different to previous ones instead of coming out of a port often with the assistance of tugs we simply sailed between the scattered islands and onward with the mainland coast of Greece on one side of us.
On the ship after dinner we went to the Marquee and watched a Robbie Williams tribute act, not totally my thing but you had to be impressed by his energy!