June 22nd, 2012

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Friday June 22nd. Komiza, Vis

Friday, June 22nd, 2012

Friday Morning:

It was short hop around the other side of the small island. Komiza is a gorgeous old fishing maritime village. Of the three family names given to me by Leslie, my long time Bellingham friend, only one is known here and it turns out there are many of them. I met one last night but he had no relatives in America. So, I’m not catching fish on Vis. (the Dutch translation for fish is vis and in Viska Luka bay there is a settlement called Kut which is a much used Dutch slang word for the female organ, imagine a Dutchman living on Vis in Kut…..). I need to keep this short because I’m off for a sail on a lateen rigged traditional local fishing boat. There will be a regatta from here to Palagruza, tomorrow, the re-enactment of the annual race to the sardine fishing grounds. Take note of how these boats were built, the shear of the top sides is removable so that the boat can be rowed. It’s a little bit like Lego set. Incredible ingenious fine wood work, without fasteners. My neighbors are Patrick and Martine from Belgium and live very close to the village I lived in between 1966-1970. When I sang Jacques Brel: “Ca sent la biere de Londres a Berlin” they passed me an ice cold beer from their regfrigerator. Ca sentait bien!

Friday Evening:

The sail went across to the island of Bisevo. There was plenty of wind. I am getting somewhere with the Bellingham connection. The helmsmen, Joe Dubra, in the picture, has an uncle in Bellingham. I expect to get the names tomorrow. There is also an ex B’hammer who is building a home in a nearby village, Joe Bozanich. The crew sailed the “falkusa” back and I then played real tourist for the rest of the afternoon. I t boat ride through the blue cave and then returned on the tour launch to Komiza, which included a 4 hour stop in an idylic bay on the other side of the island. I went for a nice hike to a high look out to take the below pictures and then for a swim. The red boat in the bay picture is “Helias” which happens to belong to Costa a sculpturer and art restorer. One of his crew members took a picture of the “falkusa” I sailed on and we will do an exchange.  Costa and crew met up with his friend Jakša Fiamengo who lives here and is a well known author and poet.

My new neighbors are a family from Zagreb, with son and his girl friend and their niece. They invited me aboard for a wonderful pasta dinner.