When the Commodore and Sandy Lawson give you advice you take it. They told us we should see Ston and Polace, so we did that yesterday.
From Kobas, we turned left and anchored Mercier at the entrance to a narrow channel at Broce. We had spoken to crew of a motor yacht the night before and they advised leave the boat at Broce and go up the channel about a mile in the zodiak and we would be in Ston. The channel is 3 metres deep but silts up and that was too fine a match for Mercier’s 2.5 draft.
We followed the narrow channel past a few holiday houses, rounded a corner and saw the great wall of Ston lining the hilltop over the village reaching out to the nearby village of Mali Ston. When I saw the stairs going up to the wall, a sigh of relief escaped me. With Mercier at anchor back at Broce, James wouldn’t suggest we climb the steep stairs or walk the 5.5 kilometre walk around the perimeter.
Wiki says that this wall was built as a second line of defense for Dubrovnik and also as a defense for the precious salt pans which was a large commercial enterprise then and is still making salt today. The wall was completed in the 15th Century and the fortress town not only had protection, but was fully plumbed.
Miljet is a very long island and we had headwinds on the way there, but the day was warm and sunny. We made it to Polace in a few hours, it was like being in a very large Refuge Bay with small anchorages up to the main bay.
Here are a few photos, more about Polace tomorrow. If you want a challenge, there is a marathon in Ston.
