The deserted bays of Kornati islands

Financial Times
By Claire Wrathall

The 16th-century chapel of Our Lady of Tarca stands on the jagged rocky shore of the scarcely inhabited island of Kornat, 18 nautical miles off Croatia’s north Dalmatian coast. Yet, despite its remoteness, most sailors in the desolately beautiful Kornati archipelago make a point of visiting at the start of the season. Signing the book by the door, and genuflecting before the altar and the ancient wooden statue of St Anthony, is held to protect the visitor from storms and other dangers. After our crew duly inscribed their names, we climbed a nearby hill the better to admire a 33m twin-masted schooner – our home for the next few days – anchored in the bay below. We then set sail for the neighbouring island of Levrnaka, where we would moor that night.

When George Bernard Shaw visited this part of the Adriatic in 1929, the landscape moved him to hyperbole. “On the last day of the Creation, God desired to crown his work and thus created the Kornati islands out of tears, stars and breath,” he wrote, to the subsequent delight of the area’s tourist industry.

Southern Dalmatia, with its tourist honeypot Dubrovnik and modish islands such as Hvar and Korcula, is well established. But the north is less frequented, its landscape harsher and more dramatic, the little Venetian harbours fewer and farther between. By the time you reach Kornati, you’ve all but left civilisation behind. Not much grows on these 140-odd pale karst isles and islets: only fragrant maquis, which fills the air with the scent of wild sage and oregano, and the odd holm oak or olive tree. And none has a permanent population or a village. Well out of reach of a phone signal, these clear ultramarine waters offer respite from the outside world. No surprise, then, that you can only really explore them by boat.

We started our voyage in Zadar, site of Croatia’s largest university. Had it not been for 72 bombing raids during the second world war and further bombardment by Serbian artillery in the early 1990s, it might rival Dubrovnik. Yet what remains of its Italianate old town, a labyrinth of narrow streets and airy piazzas surrounded on three sides by water, is still worth seeing. The handsome stock of buildings are constructed from white limestone that over time has been burnished to a reflective surface, which gleams gold at sunset. Its imposing ninth-century Byzantine rotunda church of St Donatus recalls the basilica on Torcello, an island in the Venice lagoon, and the cathedral bears a striking resemblance to the one in Pisa, while the excellent Donat ice-cream parlour by the cathedral is proof that Croatian sladoled rivals Italian gelato.

There are a handful of museums devoted to ancient glass, archaeological finds, ethnography, gold, and silver, along with Fosa (www.fosa.hr), a good waterside fish restaurant. But Zadar’s most extraordinary attraction is the Sea Organ, a gigantic 35-pipe instrument installed beneath the city’s handsome new marble esplanade, the Donja Riva. Depending on the weather and water conditions, the organ issues random rather eerie harmonic sounds that emerge from holes in the pavement and the steps that go down to the water.

The 14-berth schooner Fortuna

It’s a surreal and strangely soothing sound, and together with the gentle movement of the waves, it lulled me to sleep on my first night on our schooner, Fortuna, which was moored on the same quay. Not that sleeping on board was ever a challenge on this supremely comfortable 14-berth yacht. Of its seven ship-shape cabins, all decked out in navy and off-white, two had standard double beds, while those in the stern had mattresses more than 2m wide. All had en-suite shower rooms, miracles of compactness with plentiful hot water and proper pressure.

Otherwise, though, it was not luxurious. Skippered by its owners Tonci and Mirna Toric, aided by a first mate and a cook, it’s a base for the sort of holiday on which you make your own bed (a bedding roll containing a cotton quilt of the kind you get in business class on airlines, a narrow sheet and a pillow are provided), empty your own bin and bring your own toiletries.

Except at meals, which they serve, the crew are there for the boat, rather than the guests. (There was no faulting the way the sails were furled and unfurled, and I marvelled at the neatness of the rope coils on deck.) In some ways, it felt like staying with friends you barely knew, which made for occasional awkwardness, but this was ultimately outweighed by their vast knowledge of the area, its waters and its restaurants.

This is also the selling point of the charter company Sail Dalmatia, which had organised my trip. Founded by Dora Vulic, a London-based Croat who grew up among the sailing community in Split, it represents 45 vessels, from 10m sailing boats that sleep four (from €810 a week in late September, if you don’t need a skipper) to five-cabin 100ft Azimut motor yachts (€59,675, excluding food and fuel in high season), by way of eight schooners and ketches.

It’s this kind of insider knowledge you need in Croatia, a country still mystifyingly short of alluring hotels, and where dining out can be a lottery. In half a dozen visits I have never eaten as well as I did on this trip, thanks to our hosts’ recommendations and to chef Tomislav’s skill in the galley.

Konoba Levrnaka, where we dined after paying our respects to Our Lady of Tarca, was a simple seaside taverna in Anica bay, close to the only sandy beach in Kornati. We ate what we were offered: first, a tureen of juha, an intensely flavoured clear fish soup full of firm-fleshed skrpina, the bellicose-looking scorpion fish native to these waters, and utterly delicious. Then a kovac, a supersize John Dory baked to perfection in the traditional clay oven they call a peka, with shallots and flavourful potatoes. With a side order of blitva, a spinach-like leaf that’s another staple here, it was a great meal, made more memorable by the fact that, as we were eating, the taverna’s owner speared an octopus with a trident from the quay. We ate it for lunch next day, grilled with lemon and garlic, on the aft deck of our beautiful boat, anchored in yet another calm turquoise bay.