It's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle...

Well we are about a month away from our next big destination, Greece. We just left the city of Split. It was filled with history and culture and a city definitely worth visiting. Like many ancient cities, Split dates back thousands of years. The old town had 4 large walls to defend from enemies. One of the walls was built on the water and the only way to enter was from boat, once in the main gate there were many umderground tunnels, which was another way to escape from the enemy. With 4 main walls and gates there was some one always on guard, so they would shut the 4 giant gates at night and reopen them in the morning for traders and the market. The biblical reference, "It's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" comes from these 4 main gates. Once the gates were closed people still needed a way in and out. The "eye of the needle" was a small gate big enough for one man to go through at a time, also reducing the amount of guards needed to keep the city safe. The eye of the needle left many people with the decision, take what they could in to the city or stay outside the city with their camel and much heavier and expensive possesions and risk getting robbed or killed. Once again we got to see a great city, with great culture, history and of course coffee.
Andrew

Krka National Park

Today we took a little boat ride to visit the Krka national park waterfalls. It cost 80 kuna (about $16) and the views were pretty amazing. The park is located pretty close to a major tourist destination, Sibenik. They had a pretty impressive power plant that is no longer in use but dates back to 1895 and was operating 2 days after Niagra Falls electric plant was opened. The park has 17 waterfalls and seems to be endless. Bethany described it to be similar to The Road to Hana in Hawaii. The largest fall is around 150ft. The Krka river also provided energy for a mill. Dating back to the 19th century the mills grind grain, wash and tread cloth, etc. Our pictures will show some of the beauty along with the functionality of the falls. Thanks for all the anniversary wishes, we had a great day and received gifts from both the crew and the owners! Life is good, God is good :)
Andrew

Nautical Info

Bethany here and I haven't blogged in a while so I thought I would check in. When the guests are on Andrew is a little less busy than I am and when the guests are off there's not a whole lot to blog about.
As we speak Magic Days is going through a very narrow channel. Croatia is made up of "main land" and many many islands. This creates a lot of channels and bays. This channel gets as narrow as 35 ft. The boat has a beam of 23ft. (A beam is how wide the boat is.) So this makes for some tight sailing! Looking at the depth finder we made it through shallow water, 10 ft deep! Our draft is 5ft 5 inches. (Draft is how much of the boat us underwater, from water level to the bottom of the boat.)Needless to say we are cruising VERY slowly. Bacarella, the 200ft boat we were on last year had a draft of over 12ft. Big boats can not go through channels and get to small islands the way this boat can because of their large draft. Luckily our owners love to be underway so we can take our time getting to the next destination. Just left Zadar, Croatia and I'm not even sure where we're headed, I guess I'll figure it out when we get there. The famous director Alfred Hitchcock said that the most beautiful sunset in the world can be seen from Zadar.
Well, I better go check on my guests! -Bethany

Wakeboarding

So Bethany and I had some time off this past Sunday and wanted to do something fun, something we did back home, something to just make us feel normal for a bit. So we went to a wakeboard park but it was unlike anything we had ever seen or experienced. Instead of being pulled behind a boat we were pulled by a system of cables that was suspended 40ft above the water. The cable was in the shape of a rectangle and from one end to the other was 300ft or more feet. Its kind of hard to explain but it reminded me of a ski chair lift going round'n'round. If you fall, you just swim back. It was pretty convenient and efficient, we could keep going around until we wanted to stop and 10 or more people could go at once. Germany is really big into wakeboard parks and has 80 throughout the country, Croatia has just 3.

We are now getting ready for another owners trip. We are still in Croatia and should be here at least through the month of May. We have had some good time off and now we're gearing up for a 3 week (or more) trip. Hope all the Mum's had a great Mother's day! ;) That's it for now!
Andrew