Tendering and Heat Lightening

7/8/2009

Day two in Croatia brought a slow start, and then more beach time.  Amanda, Athena, Kara and I got off the boat early, since our boat was going to be tendering for part of the day.  That means that our slip at the pier was going to be used by other ships, and so our ship would be anchored out in the bay, and tender boats would be transporting students between the ship and the shore.  Eventually, we decided to just walk around the peninsula near the peir, and we ended up with a perfect view of the MV Explorer anchored in the harbor, and a beach that was not full of SASers.  There was a really pretty pathway along the water that had trees on either side, and some houses and a lot of little fishing boats along the water that we walked along to get to the beach.  We spent several hours swimming, laying in the sun, and generally having a good time.  As we were getting ready to leave anyway, another group of SAS kids showed up, and immediately they all stuck out like sore thumbs.  There were a lot of them, and they were very loud and slightly obnoxious.  We took that as our cue to finish gathering up our stuff, and head back toward the ship.  We stopped for a late lunch along the way.  The place we ate at had a rooftop terrace where we sat in the shade of umbrellas overlooking the water and all of the boat traffic.  Because of the strange timing of our meal, no one else was eating there, so we had the entire terrace to ourselves.  There were little song birds all around that were very friendly.  I think they were used to getting table scraps, and so they would hop between the tables and chairs all around us just watching and waiting.  After a long, relaxing meal in the comfortable shade, we continued our walk back to the ship.
We made it to the pier just in time to get our bags checked and hop on the last tender boat going to the MV.  The tender boats are actually our life boats, and they are covered, and fit up to 150 people.  They loaded this one pretty full.  It was about a 15 minute ride to get out to our ship, where we unloaded onto a floating platform, and climbed some stairs to get inside.  The entire tender boat ride, I had some girl I hadn’t met yet talking at me.  I got her entire life story, most of which I think was fabricated…  It was good entertainment to say the least.  Once we were back on the ship, I decided to go up to the gym and go for a quick run while I waited for the shower.  It was the least rocky run I have had in quite some time.  Then it was time for a shower and dinner, and by that time we were back in our slip at the pier and able to leave the ship again.
My amazing day ended with the perfect summer evening.  As we were getting ready to go out, huge black clouds rolled in, and lightening started.  It was heat lightening, so there was no thunder, and no rain, and it was still almost uncomfortably warm outside.  We watched for a while from the deck of the ship, trying to capture it on film.  I had my camera out and ready, but every time a lightening bolt lit up the sky, I would be so distracted staring at it I would forget to click the button and take a picture.  Then, we decided to go out for the night, as some of the girls I was with wanted to find a bar.  We walked in toward old town, watching the sky periodically flash along the way.  Croatia is almost as stunning by night as it was by day, and our end destination beat almost anywhere.  We ended up making our way to the cliff side bar we had seen from the city walls the day before, where the doorway opened up through the city walls into an adorable, candle lit patio overlooking the water, full moon, and clouds flashing with lightening.  The candles provided dim lighting, and there was soothing music playing, and the moonlight was dancing across the water's surface.  It reminded me of old time movies.  We were sitting on the top patio, but I went down to the bottom one for a while to get an unobstructed view.  After quite a while of just enjoying life, we made our way back to the ship.  The weather was perfect on the walk back.  Warm enough not to need a jacket or sweater of any kind still, but cool enough to be comfortable walking.  After nights like this, it is hard to imagine life can get better.