When we are not on the water in Croatia, we like to escape Split by heading into the hills behind the city.

Our favorite trail is up from the village of Sitno Gornje to the peak of Mosor. On the way is Planinarski dom Umberto Girometta at 868m above sea level. (A planinarski dom is a hiker’s hut.)

Hiking Club Mosor, Split (HPD Mosor) is responsible for maintaining the refuge – and one local family has been making the trek up there each weekend, with the supply-laden donkey, for the last 35 years, to feed us hungry hikers.

The rooms are basic (open every weekend of the year), but the food is hearty – especially the pasta fazol – bean soup with sausages.

Our Danish friends came with us one weekend – their report can be read here.

Dropping Roklan off at day-care the other day I noticed the kids running around the playground with familiar brown seed pods – though I have never seen them in Perth before. The pods come from a carob tree – a rarity here, but numerous in Dalmatia – where they are called rogač.

Today carob is used as a chocolate substitute – historically the drought-resistant plant has served many purposes – mainly using the powder made from the skin of its seed pods, but the seeds themselves were useful as well.

In ancient Egypt, carob was used as a sweetener.

Saint John (the Baptist) is said to have survived in the wilderness by eating them – giving the plant another name – Saint John’s Bread. During WW2 the Maltese and Greeks used the pods as extra sustenance.

The Venetians are responsible for the most of the carob trees in Dalmatia – they fed the meal to their galley slaves – not only is it high in carbohydrates, but, and probably, more importantly, in the bilge of a ship where toilet-breaks were discouraged, if a lot of it is eaten it causes constipation.

Julie found the recipe below for Carob Cake on allrecipes.com. (To make carob powder, take the pods, remove the seeds and then roast and grind up the husks.)

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup honey
2 eggs
1 banana, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup carob powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup dry milk powder
1/4 cup carob powder
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat the oven to 175C. Grease and flour a 20cm square pan. Sift together the flour, 1/3 cup carob powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup butter and 2/3 cup of honey until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the banana and vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the 3/4 cup water. Stir in chopped walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

To make the frosting – in a large bowl, cream 1/4 cup butter and 1/3 cup honey until smooth. Blend in the milk powder, carob powder, 1/4 cup water and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth and spread on cooled cake.

In Dalmatia, the powder is mixed with water, and then distilled to make a spirit – rogačica.

The cake goes well with good Dalmatian dessert wine – maybe Prosek Hektorovich from Tomič’s winery on Hvar Island.

Finally, for what were the discarded seeds used? As a standard unit of weight measurement for precious stones and gold – and Ceratonia siliqua, the plant’s scientific name, evolved into ‘carat’ – our measurement of diamond size…

Last week we received the invitation from Plamenko Bavcevic to participate in the 2nd Rota Palagruzona – a traditional boat event starting on Hvar Island, crossing to Komiza, on Vis Island and then crossing to remote Palagruza Island.

Professor Josko Bozanic started the regatta to honor the old fisherman who used to make the marathon journey from Komiza to Palagruza to take advantage of the rich fishing grounds. (The currents of the Adriatic Sea sweep up the rocky islet from the depths bringing nutrients with them – attracting fish from all around.)

Last year we took the Labud to Komiza to take part in the crossing. Unfortunately we had some mechanical issues – so it would not have been safe for us to take-on the 45 nautical miles of open sea – but as it turned out the weather was against the rest of the fleet, and no one went.

Instead a small race was organized to Brusnik Island.

That night, upon the boats’ return, a festival was held in Komiza, with a presentation, klapa (traditional singing) and a brudet (fish stew) cook-off.

This year the regatta will be from 20th – 25th June. It will coincide with one of our Vis and Hvar Islands Kayak Adventures.

More information about the fishermen of Komiza and crossing to Palagruza can be found in articles Ray Fusco and I wrote about our attempt to cross the Adriatic by kayak – here and here.

The best reflection of the Dalmatian locals’ rediscovery of their maritime heritage is the yearly increase in the number of participants in the Latinsko Idro (Latin Sail) Regatta. We have mentioned Latinsko Idro previously.

A Latin-rigged boat has a single triangular sail – only such boats can enter the regatta.

The fleet of gajetas and leuts grew again this year – and the late-season weather was perfect for the event.

More pictures can be found here.

Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica‘s shed.

It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism.

Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and David Hicks – but that aside it is was very positive.

The fight between the Arista directors Don Marshall and Ivica Viljac is made evident with Don saying the boat will be released shortly, and Ivica contradicting that by saying it will not.

(It should be noted that Arista has decided to hire a Public Relations consultant, Lori Vitaljić from Predikat d.o.o., to help with their image.)

David Hicks, of Arista Nautica and Arista Yachts, was questioned today by Croatian police in Split, regarding threats he made to us (Julie Morgan and Shane Braddock) on May 8th to harm us himself or use Ivica Viljac as a weapon.

David said on the day, “I want to scare you to protect my friends, Tim Jarman and Giles Weston (unregistered foreigners in Croatia at the time) from your promises to report Tim and Giles to immigration authorities for conducting business affairs against you.”

On Friday Julie was attacked by Ivica Viljac!

Addendum – 28 June 2009 – Surprise – we went to use our car on Sunday only to discover it had been vandalized – we wonder who did it?

#1 – Time Out Croatia

We provided numerous pictures to Time Out Croatia for their current magazine issue, in exchange for our contact details being published, and they chose one. But imagine our shock when we opened the new issue to see that they had put our picture (seen above), uncredited as well, right next to a paragraph of text extolling our competitors, Adriatic Kayak Tours.

The saga continues…

#2 – Arista Nautica

The leut, Labud, is finished and ready to be launched. But she still sits in the shed at the Arista Nautica yards in Vranjic.

Why? Because two personal friends of David Hicks (one of the yard’s owners), Tim Jarman and Giles Weston, were doing the wrong thing by us business-wise – so we told them to pull their heads in or we would go to the police. The cowards got worried – as they are unregistered to live in Croatia – and ran to David. He demanded we pay $US20,000 before we can remove our boat from the shed. This was done in the hope we would be scared and leave his friends alone.

We told him to keep the boat and that we will see him and Don Marshall (the other owner) in the criminal and civil courts. There are no contracts between us and I have done in the last 12 months three design projects for David and Don and not asked for a cent.

The saga continues…

#3 – Motovun Elections

Local elections were held across Croatia on May 17. We made the pilgrimage in Motovun to vote. Our friend, Ranko Bon (seen below kissing the obligatory baby (Roklan)), was standing as a candidate for the Green Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. His candidacy was part of a continuing campaign to sustainably improve Motovun (and stop the proposed Jupiter Adria golf development).

The results were not as we had hoped. Firstly, the current mayor and IDS candidate, Slobodan Vugrinec, was returned. Secondly, Ranko didn’t earn a position on the town council.

Across Croatia there was a movement away from the center-right parties (HDZ and IDS) but the center-left party (SDP) didn’t pick up the vote – secondary parties and independents did. So in Motovun it wasn’t all bad news – IDS lost 3 seats (from 9 down to 6), SDP/Greens also lost a seat (from 4 to 3 (Ranko was 4th on their list)) and a new independent party got 4 seats. These Motovun independents, before the election, had voiced their concerns about the golf development – so we have to wait and see.

Mayor Vugrinec has already thrown a tantrum, stating he no longer wants the position if he doesn’t have an absolute majority in the town council!

The saga continues…

( In Split, after earning over 45% of the initial vote, Kerum will be in a run-off this weekend – which he is likely to win – and become our next mayor.)

The Italian influence on Croatia over thousands of years has been great. The Romans, Venetians and Italian Empires have for at different times taken parts of the country. Even today, in Istria all the street signs are bilingual and in Dalmatia there are many Italian surnames.

But it hasn’t been all one way traffic. The citizens of three small, hilltop towns in Italy’s Molise region (above) – Acquaviva Collecroce (Kruč), San Felice del Molise (Štifilić) and Montemitro (Montemitro) – speak an archaic Štokavian dialect. Štokavian is one of the three main Croatian dialects.

As the Islamic Ottoman Empire advance through Hercegovina during the 15th Century, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Albanians fled before them, and crossed the Adriatic Sea. Finding several villages abandoned because of the plague, they settled down and have been there ever since.

The Molise Croats are considered to be Italy’s smallest ethnic group – about 5,000 still speak their language.

In the town of Montemitro (above) – the local soccer team wears Croatian colours.

(Another historical note – at the end of WW2, Yugoslavia retook parts of Dalmatia that had been part of the Kingdom of Italy between the wars. More than 20,000 ethnic Italian Dalmatians fled from the region and thousands of them still live in a suburb of Rome, called the Quartiere Dalmato.)

The finishing touches are being completed on the leut, including her name been painted on the stern. As mentioned previously her name, Labud – which means ‘swan’ in Croatian – is a reference to the river which runs through Perth. From my parents’ house on the river the Swan Yacht Club can be seen. Its burgee (below) will fly from the Labud‘s rigging.

The swan on the burgee is black (the colour the boat is painted) – since in the antipodes everything is done backwards. Black swans appear on everything in Western Australia – including on the state flag and its coat of arms (both above).

Its only fair that the state symbol for Dalmatia is also flown. The flag and coat of arms above show Dalmatia’s three golden leopards on a their blue background. (Yes the leopards have manes! In medieval heraldry leopards were often shown without spots and with manes – as they were believed to a crossbreed of a lion and a panther). The origins of this symbol are lost – though examples from the 14th Century exist.

The Dalmatian Coat of Arms is included on the Croatian Coat of Arms and flag (above). Its in the middle of the five small symbols above the medieval (maybe even 10th Century) Croatian red and white chequey (šahovnica). Of course the Croatian flag will be the highest flag on the boat since it will be Croatian registered.

The small symbols of the Croatian Coat of Arms are as follows (from left to right):

- The oldest known coat of arms of Croatian rulers- a golden six-pointed star over a silver moon on a blue shield – thought to be pagan symbols. (The crescent moon has nothing to do with Islam as the shield predates the religion).

- The coat of arms of the Dubrovnik Republic – two red stripes on a dark blue shield.

- Dalmatia.

- The coat of arms of Istria – a golden goat with red hooves and horns, on a dark blue shield.

- The 15th Century coat of arms of the northern region of Slavonia – two silver stripes, which represent the Drava and Sava Rivers that form it’s borders, on blue shield , between them, on a red field a black, a running marten (a mongoose-like animal known as a kuna in Croatian) and above a six-pointed, golden star. The pelts of the kuna were used as a early form of early money in Croatia, so the local currency now called the kuna (below)

There will also be an Australian flag somewhere on the boat…

Split’s adventurous couple, Tonka Alujević and Alen Krstulović, last night presented the documentary for their last adventure – rowing and sailing their renovated 1936 2.9m guc (shown above) 550 nautical miles through France’s Canal du Midi, from the Mediterranean Sea to Atlantic Ocean, and finishing in Brest for the International Maritime Festival last year.

The website for the guc project is here and the other website for all of Tonka’s and Alen’s adventures, such as riding their BMW motorcycle around the Mediterranean, is here.

Their presentation was part of the Dani Hrvatske Male Brodogradnje (Croatian Small Boat Days) held at the Le Meridien Grand Hotel Lav. This small fair was held just after the Croatia Boat Show in Split – its big, but not as handsome, brother.

This year, its 11th, the Croatia Boat Show, from the outside, seemed a disaster. The number of exhibitors was down (and I assume the number of buyers) due to the world’s financial concerns, but it didn’t help that Huey, the weather god, sent rain squalls and fog for the whole week.

Aklie, the boat show critic, only liked two things – the Aston Martin DBS and the ‘pirate boat’ (really the Tirena, a replica of a 16th Century Ragusan galleon). Slim pickings indeed!